


Give the Game Away

by lettersfromnowhere



Series: The Waiting Game [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Family Dynamics, Gen, Minor Character Death, Political Intrigue, Steambaby-centric, The Waiting Game-verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 94,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26282581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere
Summary: Kya’s been in her oldest sister’s shadow all her life and she’ll do anything to prove she’s more than a backup heir or a problem child - even marry a man she’s never met.Crown Princess Izumi’s inheriting a nation in crisis without even knowing that there is more than one reason the future of her country hinges upon her.Yuna Oyama, second-to-last of the airbenders, wanted a quiet life for her child, not political intrigue that threatens to rip her family apart.And, sick of seeing her family and her people suffering, Yangchen Oyama just wants to dosomething.None of them asked for this, but with the Fire Nation on the brink of war, it’s anybody’s game.(A sequel to 'The Waiting Game.')
Relationships: Aang/Hina Oyama (The Waiting Game), Katara/Zuko (Avatar), several OC/OC ships
Series: The Waiting Game [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867837
Comments: 392
Kudos: 64





	1. The Price of Peace

**Author's Note:**

> You will need to have read both "The Waiting Game" and "When the Wait is Over" for this to make sense but even if you have, there are a LOT of kids to keep straight. So, here's a quick refresher: 
> 
> Hina and Aang's children:  
> -Yuna - age 23, Airbender. Married to Ryuji.  
> -Yangchen - age 21, Earthbender  
> -Gyatso - age 19, Firebender
> 
> Zuko and Katara's children:  
> -Izumi - age 26, Firebender. Engaged to Hideo Matsuda.  
> -Kya - born age 25, Waterbender  
> -Ryuji - age 23, Waterbender. Married to Yuna Oyama.  
> -Sakari - age 19, nonbender  
> -Sana - age 17, firebender
> 
> "Give the Game Away" takes place 27 years after the events of "The Waiting Game." Story revised in January 2021 to flesh out Sakari and Yangchen's dynamic.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara and Zuko realize that the cost of averting war with the Earth Kingdom is higher than they want to pay; their family reacts to life-altering news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. GUYS. You know how many times I've said I was going to give this thing a sequel and just...didn't? 
> 
> IT'S GETTING A SEQUEL NOW. 
> 
> Watching people enjoy "The Waiting Game" has been one of the greatest joys I've gotten to experience this year, and I'm so grateful to each and every reader for keeping my love of this story and its characters alive. I know this story's got a limited audience, since it's focused on Zuko/Katara and Hina/Aang's children and not, for the most part, the couples themselves, but I wanted to tell it *so badly* that I couldn't help but post it. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you.

**_Ba Sing Se_ **

****

“I won’t do it. These terms are unacceptable.” The Earth Queen swept a sheaf of papers from her desk, chin raised. “If _this_ is how you are to insist upon negotiating, I won’t hear of it. _Yi!”_

Zuko raised his hand to halt the servant, who’d come running at the sound of the Queen’s voice. “Your Majesty, we have offered you every possible concession,” he said, fighting to keep his tone even though it exhausted him. “I can’t understand what else you’d possibly want from us.”

“I want a _guarantee,_ Lord Zuko.” The Queen glanced to him pointedly, then to the Fire Lady, as if they’d know what she was referring to with only a look. “I need to know that your insurgents will not-“

“They are not _our_ insurgents,” Katara interrupted.

“They _are-“_

“If I’m not mistaken, this issue arose over roving bandits who crossed into the Fire Nation _from your territory.”_ Zuko and Katara exchanged the kind of wordless glance they’d grown so skilled in over the years – _I know you’re right, I have your back, I’ve got you,_ it usually said. “It was only _after_ that initial provocation that some of our citizens began to arm themselves against incursions-“

“Your people turned a few robberies into an _insurrection!”_ the Queen shouted, slamming her fist against the desk.

“We’re in the middle of a drought, Your Majesty. What do you expect to happen when poor farmers are being robbed to the teeth during the worst harvest we’ve had in years?”

“And even if they _hadn’t_ been desperate,” Katara cut in, “ _your_ citizens provoked ours. Had those bandit clans not crossed our borders, there would have been no insurrection, no border skirmish, and no reason for these negotiations!”

“And that really is _all it is,”_ Zuko added pointedly. “It’s not a war. It’s not an all-out attack. It’s bandits clashing with an insurgent group at the border. “Your demands, given the scope of the issue, are quite simply unreasonable.”

“Unreasonable?” The Queen fumed. “ _Unreasonable?_ As unreasonable as your country occupying mine for a century?”

“Your Majesty, this isn’t about-“

“How can it _not_ be? This is merely the latest in a long line of slights against my country by yours.”

Katara and Zuko shared another heavy look at that, because for all that the Queen was blowing the issue directly at hand out of proportion, she was almost right: their history _did,_ in some way, compel concessions of the Fire Nation that otherwise would’ve been extreme.

So they sighed, turned back to the Queen, and silently awaited her request.

“I want to know that our countries will not infringe upon one another’s sovereignty, and I want concrete proof of it.”

“And what exactly-“

“You have children, do you not?” she said. “Five, if I remember correctly?”

“Your Majesty, you cannot be asking-“

“I have two, myself.” She smiled pointedly. “My older son, San, is already married, of course, but my younger son, Hyun, is not.”

A feather falling to the floor would’ve made a deafening noise in the quiet that fell over the room.

  
“If you want peace, you will give one of your daughters to the Earth Kingdom in marriage.”

In another life, Katara would’ve railed against this, shouted to the sky, grabbed the Queen by her shoulders and refused to let go until she’d secured her daughter’s freedom. In another life she’d have fought tooth and nail because no daughter of hers – no daughter who’d been raised by her hand to love and be loved – would ever be given as a peace offering, as if she were an object, a symbol, and nothing more.

But she’d learned all too quickly these twenty-five years that peace had costs few would be willing to pay, and she and her family would have to pay them.

“Done.”

Zuko took his wife’s hand beneath the desk despite the tremors in his own, and they stood.

* * *

“We’re terrible parents, Katara.”

“I know,” Katara murmured, burying her face in her husband’s tunic. He leaned against the pillows, though he’d wanted to throw every last one in its hideous green covering out the window the way the Earth Queen was forcing him to throw one of his daughters-

“I didn’t want this for them.” He shifted his grip, holding Katara’s shoulders as they began to tremble. “I wanted them to have chances, Katara. I wanted-“

“I know,” she interrupted, unable to bear hearing any more.

“I wanted them to be able to marry for love,” he said after a moment, once Katara’s arms had found their way around his neck. “I know better than anyone why that was never going to happen, but…”

“We should just be glad we got one happy kid?” Katara looked up at him, her eyes still moist. “Agni, that sounds _horrible.”_

“I’m grateful for that, at least.” He absentmindedly kissed her hairline. “That Ryuji’s safe.”

“I never thought I’d be relieved that my only son eloped,” Katara replied, trying to lighten the mood but only succeeding in making herself cry. “But Izumi…”

“It doesn’t have to be Izumi, Katara.”

“But she’s-“

“She’s engaged. We don’t-“

“But what if we _have_ to?”

“We can’t do it, Katara. We _can’t.”_

“Zuko, you _know_ she’s going to demand it.”

“She’s already had the weight of the world on her shoulders her entire life! I’m not about to rob her of what happiness she could still-“

“But what if it’s the only way to secure the peace?” Katara sniffed, burying her head in the crook of his shoulder once again. “Sana and Saki are too young, Ryuji’s married, and Kya…”

“There’s no reason Kya _couldn’t_ marry, Katara.”

“But Zuko…”

He sighed, rubbing her shoulders in a vain attempt at comforting her. “I know, darling,” he sighed, letting her sink into his touch. “I hate this as much as you do.”

“But this has _always_ been your life,” she sighed. “You knew it would probably happen. But _how,_ Zuko? How can we just…let them take our girls?”

Neither wanted to answer that, and in the quiet of the palace, they held each other – there was nothing more to be done.

* * *

**_Northern Air Temple_ **

****

“Yuna, this…this…”

“Everything all right?” Yuna glanced up from her book. “You don’t look so good.”

“No. No,” Ryuji muttered, crossing the room in only a few steps to sit beside his wife on the futon. “This can’t…this…I…”

“Ryu…” Yuna laid her hand on his arm, gently taking the scroll they’d just received by messenger hawk from his shaking hands. “What is it?”

“It’s my sister,” he rasped. “She’s…they’re…”

“Earth Kingdom negotiations,” Yuna read, one hand instinctively cradling her swollen stomach as the other held the scroll. Ryuji’s nearest hand drifted there, too, covering hers; he’d taken to that lately, grounding himself in the knowledge that someone – _two_ someones – needed him. “Hand in marriage?” she inhaled sharply. “Oh…”

  
“They’re going to just…hand her over like some _prize,”_ Ryuji said, his voice icy now that he’d regained enough composure to be angry again. “And you know what’s even worse? They didn’t even say which _one._ They don’t _care._ For all that it matters to them, none of my sisters are even people, Yuna. They’re…they…”

“I’m so sorry, Ryuji.” She leaned to rest her head against his shoulder. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“It isn’t me you need to be feeling sorry for.”

“For all of them, then.” Yuna squeezed his forearm. “I know they’re not actually my sisters, but…”

Neither of them needed to finish that statement. Yuna and her siblings were all but an extension of the royal family; children of the Fire Lord and Lady’s closest friends, they’d grown up alongside Ryuji and his sisters and come to think of themselves as eight rather than five and three. This was a blow to Yuna, too.

“You know how we were talking about going back home for a while?” Yuna began again after a few moments.

“Yes, but I didn’t think we were going for a few months.” He glanced over at her. “I thought you wanted to have the baby there, not just…visit.”

“Well…” she turned her downcast eyes up towards him. “It seems like we should just…move back for a while.”

“Yuna, are you sure?”

“Your family is going to need you. Of course I’m sure.”

“But the Air Acolytes-“

“Are going to be fine on their own.” She waited to continue until his eyes were on hers. “Ryuji, we need to be there.” She pressed his hand. “With our family.”

“Well…” he glanced back down at the letter. “If you’re sure, I’d like that.”

  
“Then I think it’s time we went home.”

* * *

****

**_Caldera City_ **

****

“What do you _mean_ ‘hand in marriage?” Sakari flew from her seat, practically throwing it to the ground in her outraged haste. “They can’t do that! They can’t just _force-“_

“Saki, please.” Izumi’s expression was blank, but her voice was anything but measured. “We all knew that at least one of us would likely need to make a political match. It’s no great shock.”

“Well, it is to me,” Sakari snapped. “And I don’t know why any of you aren’t _more_ shocked.”

True to form, Sakari stomped from the room the moment she’d said her piece, and no one lifted a finger to keep her there. She needed to be allowed to ride out this storm alone; more than any of her siblings, Sakari had taken to the expected teenage moodiness with aplomb, and her temper was famously flammable.

“Tell me it isn’t Saki,” Izumi cut in as soon as she’d left, glancing back at her parents. “Tell me you’re not going to give her to the Earth Prince.”

“Zumi, she may be of age, but she’s nowhere near ready or willing to marry. We won’t make her.”

“Well, forgive me for worrying when I’ve seen fifteen-year-olds married off for worse reasons,” Izumi snapped. “Sana-“

“I’m _seventeen,”_ Sana interrupted. “You _better_ not hand me over.”

“Of course not, Sana,” Katara said tiredly, barely awake enough to glance at her youngest daughter. “Unfortunately, it’s down to you and Kya-“

“Mom, you can’t be serious.” Izumi’s face blanched. “I know how much this matters, believe me, I do. But I’m _engaged.”_

“We know, Izumi,” Zuko said as gently as he could manage, “but…”

“Please, Dad.” Izumi’s breaths were coming in shorter by the second. “I’ve done everything you asked, everything I was supposed to. Always. I had myself resigned to thinking I’d never be able to marry for love-“

“Izumi, _please.”_

“I’m not done yet.” Izumi squeezed her eyes shut. “I thought I’d never get to marry for love, and then I met Hideo, and…and…I swear on all the spirits I’m not giving him up.”

“Kya?” Katara’s gaze drifted to her last remaining daughter, seated across the table from Izumi. “Do you…have anything to add?” 

Kya had been uncharacteristically quiet as their parents had explained the problem at hand, and now Izumi could see why: her voice was shaky, thick with what could’ve been terror or outrage or sadness or just about anything. “Um…” she said softly. “Um, I think…I need to think about this.”

“That’s fine, sweetie,” Katara said softly. “Both of you. Take all the time you need.”

“But there has to be some sort of timetable, doesn’t there?” Izumi asked, her characteristic pragmatism beginning to peel back the edges of her outrage.

“They didn’t give us one,” Zuko told them. “We have to assume the Queen will push one on us at some point, but she hasn’t yet.”

  
“And they don’t care which one of us marries the Prince?”

“It doesn’t appear so,” Katara sighed, massaging her temple. “I…I can’t tell you enough how much I hate this. But…”

“Mom, I don’t blame you,” Izumi replied, reaching across to lay her hand on her mother’s arm. “I get it. I would’ve done the same-“

“Well, I _don’t,_ and I wouldn’t,” Kya interrupted, her resigned horror waning in a moment of resolved. “This whole business is despicable. One of us is going to be a pawn for the rest of her life no matter _what_ we choose, and I can’t believe our own _parents-“_

“We did everything we could to settle the deal before she resorted to this, Kya.” Zuko’s voice, earlier so defeated, was thick with determination now. “And we’d do _anything_ to get you out of it, but we _can’t._ And we can’t afford for this border skirmish to expand any further than it already has-“

“A _border skirmish?”_ Kya fumed. “You’re selling off your own daughter because of a _border skirmish?”_

“Kya!” Izumi cut in sharply. “Can you _please_ just keep it cool for once?”

  
“That region has been volatile for years, Kya,” Katara explained as patiently as she could. “It’s so close to the border that there are as many Earth Nationals on our side as Fire Nationals. So if Earth Nationals attack them, the whole system’s going to fall apart. If we let these skirmishes continue, they won’t stay skirmishes for long.”

“The ethnic tensions are already so high in Matori Province that we just can’t afford to let it turn into a flashpoint,” Izumi said. “It’ll turn into Earth Nationals slaughtering Fire Nationals or the other way around, depending on where you are, and soon it’ll be a full-out bloodbath, and after that…”

“Someone’s going to have to declare war,” Zuko finished. “Believe me when I say that this is a last-ditch effort to stop a war and _nothing_ else.”

Kya stared at them for a moment, her normally-expressive face betraying nothing she was feeling, before she spoke up.

“I’ll do it.”

“Kya…”

“Izumi, don’t.” Kya took a deep breath to center herself. “You’re right. I hate this, and I think it’s a stupid reason to be marrying anyone off, but if it’s going to start a war, someone has to do it.” She glanced at her sister. “And it has to be the one of us who isn’t already in love.”

“Kya, you don’t have to do this,” Izumi said, her voice shaky. “I…I love Hideo, but if it’s my duty to secure the peace, I’ll break the engagement.”

“No, you won’t.” Kya straightened her back. “Because _I’m_ going to marry Prince Hyun.”

No one spoke for a moment and, though Kya was seconds from tears, her heart swelled.

_I did something right,_ she realized, feeling almost light with the realization. She’d always been the selfish one: the troublemaker who messed with her siblings to no end, the princess who shirked every imaginable duty simply because she knew she’d never be needed, the tempestuous one who’d flare up at the smallest provocation and pay it back in equal measure. She’d been the problem child, the difficult one, the disappointment – her parents never said it but absolutely everyone else did – and she’d never, _ever_ come close to measuring up to Izumi. Stately, composed Izumi, with her quick brain and complaisance, had been the model princess; her brother Ryuji, softhearted and compassionate, had been a favorite; and her younger sisters had been far too young and irrelevant to be judged as harshly as she, the second-oldest. She’d been the one the whispers were meant for.

Sometimes, Kya thought that she had never been good in her life.

Sometimes, Kya wondered if she’d had the same taint in her blood as the worst of her father’s ancestors.

She sat straighter, then, knowing that she’d broken with tradition in the noblest of ways, and even as tears slipped from her closed eyes, she was too proud to care.

“I’m going to do it,” she repeated after a moment in which no one dared to disturb the silence. “I’m going to marry him. I’ll be the olive branch.”

Then she stood and fled the room before her family could question her.

* * *

“ _Waterboy!”_

Ryuji barely had time to glance up – barely had time to brush the bison fur from his clothes, for that matter – before he felt himself knocked backwards, grunting in surprise as his sister-in-law ran down the stairs of the front courtyard of the palace and threw herself headlong into his arms. He nearly fell backwards but he couldn’t help but laugh, tightening his arms around Yangchen’s waist to lift her off the ground (because nothing, _nothing,_ made Yangchen Oyama angrier than a reminder of her small stature). “Good to see you, too,” he laughed. “Been a while.”

“I have half a mind to punch you,” Yangchen said once she’d let go of him. “You know. For what you did to my sister.”

“Yangchen, please.” Yuna shook her head as she approached her sister, pulling her into an awkward half-hug that attempted, unsuccessfully, to circumvent her stomach. “You knew about this. I’d think four months would’ve been long enough for you to prepare yourself.”

“Oh, yeah, no, but I’m still gonna kill him.” She lightly socked her brother-in-law’s arm, as if to prove her sincerity. “So is mom, probably.”

_That,_ at least, had Ryuji looking worried. “Is she mad?”

That made Yangchen laugh because she, apparently, was the _only_ person in the Four Nations not to have the good sense to be terrified of Hina Oyama. “No, just messing with you. _Your_ mom, though…” Yangchen grimaced. “Let’s just say she didn’t appreciate finding out that she was getting a grandkid via letter.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine.” Yuna shook her head fondly. “Maybe not with Ryu, but she can’t stay mad at me for long.”

“I…wouldn’t test that.” Yangchen’s face fell. “She isn’t doing very well with the whole…marriage contract thing.”

“Is she upset?” Ryuji stepped forwards, his gaze fixed on her. “I mean, of course she is, but…how upset?”

“I haven’t seen much of her,” Yangchen said, shrugging. “But the few times I have, she hasn’t looked too good.”

  
“I’m sure having you home will cheer her up a little, though, won’t it?” Yuna asked. “She’s missed you.”

“She’s missed both of us, love.”

“Pet names. Ugh,” Yangchen scoffed. “You people disgust me.”

“Love you too, Chennie!” Yuna called after her sister as she turned to scale the flight of stairs, grinning at the disgruntled huff Yangchen let out. “Works every time.”

“Well…welcome home,” Ryuji muttered. “I have a feeling this visit’s going to be anything but peaceful.”

“Ryuji, if you wanted peace, we would’ve stayed at the Air Temple.” She took his arm and they began the climb. “But they need us.”

“That’s the theory…”

“It’s the _truth,_ Ryu.”

And it was, now more than ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Yuna and Ryuji reunite with their parents; Izumi and Hideo talk things over; the family reacts to Kya's choice.


	2. Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuna and Ryuji reunite with their parents; Zuko and Kya discuss her choice; Izumi and Gyatso talk things out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOOD DAD AANG RIGHTS. Also, Gyatso, your arc is going to be...ohhh boy. 
> 
> (Zayna, I'm so sorry. I'M SO SORRY.)

It took a great deal to make Hina Oyama freeze up. In her tenure as Spymistress, she’d had countless close calls and seen more strange things than she cared to keep track of. She’d raised three children when she’d never thought she’d even _want_ them before she’d married. She’d married the _Avatar,_ for Agni’s sake, and with that decision came a hefty dose of weird. She wasn’t an easily-rattled woman, not by any stretch of the imagination.

But this…this would do it.

She’d come running the moment Yangchen barged into her office to announce that Yuna had arrived, of course. Yuna and Ryuji had sent word that they’d be coming, but it had only arrived a few hours earlier; their sky bison, Meng, must’ve made good time. And now, she stood across the foyer from the couple, and the sight of them after two long years was enough to make her stop in her tracks.

She’d never have admitted it – doting, Hina was not – but the day she’d woken up to a note on her desk informing her that Yuna had eloped with the Fire Nation prince who’d had her heart since childhood had been one of the worst of her life. For a long while that morning, she and Aang had held each other, crying into each other’s shoulders, and though she was loath to admit it, she’d cried all over again when Yuna had sent word that she and Ryuji were expecting. The news of their arrival had been a shock as much as it had been a relief and now she almost couldn’t believe she’d actually come home.

“Yuna,” she murmured under her breath, though she knew they couldn’t hear her. Ryuji stood beside her, his arm around her shoulders and one of his hands resting atop hers on her belly. There had always been tenderness in the way they’d looked at each other, especially since they’d returned from university together, but this...this was something else, something Hina shortsightedly hadn’t been expecting. She’d never quite lost the cast of childhood romance through which she saw their relationship, but the self-assuredness and plain, simple _love_ evident on their faces as they conversed softly, never too far apart, was anything but. They’d grown since they’d been away, and Hina couldn’t help but notice that her daughter looked more content than she ever had before.

Then Yuna glanced up and across the room and her face lit up.

“Mom!” she cried, hiking up her skirts and, at very least, _attempting_ to run to her, difficult as that was in her condition. Hina, charitably, met her in the middle and, as much as she’d always hated public affection, took her daughter into her arms, holding on lest she slip away again.

“Yuna,” she murmured against her daughter’s shoulder. “I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too,” Yuna sniffled, already on the verge of tears. She’d always been quicker to cry than her mother had. “Where’s Dad?”

“I’m…not sure.” Hina realized sheepishly that perhaps she should’ve let Aang know that Yuna had arrived, though their other daughter had probably taken care of that already. “He’s here, though. You’ll-“

“ _Yuna!”_

“Well, that answers your question,” Hina said with a smile that Yuna couldn’t see at the sound of her husband’s voice. She let her go and Yuna turned to Aang.

“I missed you, little lemur!”

“Dad, I’m twenty-five.” Yuna rolled her still-teary eyes fondly as she wrapped her arms around her father. “I missed you too.” 

“You’re still my little lemur,” he teased, before releasing her to look her up and down. “I see the married life agrees with you-“

“ _Dad!”_

“What? All I mean is that you look happy,” he said, shrugging innocently. “Speaking of…where’s Ryuji?”

“Over here.” Ryuji, who’d been standing back to give Yuna space as she reunited with her parents, waved in greeting. “Nice to see you again, Avatar Aang.”

“Didn’t I tell you never to call me that?” Aang asked jovially, gesturing for Ryuji to join them. He didn’t miss the way Hina’s eyes fixed on him as he approached. “Now. Tell me, Prince Ryuji, have you been taking good care of my daughter?”

Yuna took his arm as soon as he was close enough to touch and patted his chest affectionately as she leaned into his side. “The best,” she said, smiling encouragingly.

Hina’s disapproving glare relaxed only a fraction. “I’m glad you’re happy, but I’m still not really over the part where you absconded with my daughter _and then knocked her up_ ,” she said stiffly.

“ _Mama!”_ now it was Yuna’s turn to level the Oyama Glare at her mother.

“Now, Hina,” Aang said, shaking his head. “It’s not as if it wasn’t a mutual absconding. Or…the other thing.”

“Still.” Hina clucked, then her face relaxed into a teasing smile. She might as well drop the act now – she couldn’t hold anything against Ryuji for too long, especially not when her daughter was so happy. “But it’s good to have you back, if only so I can keep an eye on you two.”

Yuna, relieved more than anything else, took her mother’s teasing in stride. “Mama, you and I both know that it’s Yangchen you need to be keeping an eye on, not us.”

“Don’t remind me,” Hina sighed. “Just last week we found a series of tunnels she’d bent underneath her chambers to sneak out through. Ingenious, I have to say, but of course we had to fill them all in.”

“That sounds like Yangchen,” Yuna laughed, but her expression quickly shifted to reveal the worry she’d been able to forget in the joy of reuniting with her parents. “So…how’s everyone taking the peace settlements?”

Hina’s eyes darkened. “Not well,” she told them. “In all seriousness, I’m glad you came home. I’m worried about your parents, Ryuji, and seeing you might do them some good.”

“Where _are_ my parents?” Ryuji asked, finally speaking up. “And…my sisters?”

“Heading down, I’m sure,” Aang replied.

“Oh, are they?” Hina asked. “I didn’t see them.”

“Well, I passed Katara on the stairs as I was heading down and she was…in a state, so I take it they got the news before I did.” Aang shrugged. “We should probably leave them to it.”

“Agreed.” Hina squeezed her daughter’s arm before she turned to go. “I’ll see you at dinner, right?”

“Of course.” Yuna tried to smile reassuringly, though it didn’t work too well, and she and Ryuji shared a worried glance as her parents left the room, arm-in-arm.

“Do you think they’re okay?” Ryuji asked. “I mean, they seemed fine, but I’m…I’m worried about my mom.”

“I am too,” Yuna admitted. “This has to be killing her. And your dad, and Izumi…”

“I wonder if they’ve decided who it’s going to be yet,” Ryuji wondered aloud. “I hope-“

“ _Ryuji?”_

Whatever had been on his mind died on his lips at the sound of his mother’s voice, and before he could stop himself, Ryuji was running to meet her.

“Ryuji,” Katara murmured simply as she folded her son into her arms. “Oh, Ryuji…”

“I’m here, Mom.” He held her tight, her dampening his shirt. “I’m here.”

* * *

“Kya, are you alright?”

Kya sat bolt upright at the sound of her father’s voice, frantically fluffing the pillow misshapen where her face had been buried only seconds ago. She turned it so its tear stains wouldn’t be visible and frantically wiped at her eyes, splashing her face with water from the basin she kept on her nightstand in the hopes that it wouldn’t appear as red as it did right now. “I’m fine!” she finally called after she’d prepared herself for his inevitable entrance.

“Are you sure?” Zuko asked, gently pushing the door in. “It’s okay if-“

“No, seriously, I’m fine.” She tried to school her features into a neutral expression, but she’d never been as gifted at concealing her emotions as her older sister had; it probably wasn’t convincing. “Do you need something?”

“What you just did…” Zuko took a seat at the edge of Kya’s bed. “I just want you to know how proud of you I am, Kya.”

Heat bloomed in Kya’s chest but she tried not to let it show on her face. “Thanks, Dad,” she said, her voice too strained to sound normal. “I…just did what needed to be done.”

“No one asked that of you, though,” he said. “I know how big of a sacrifice this is-“

“Dad, _stop.”_ Kya had to fight to keep in the tears that wanted to spill from her eyes. “Please, just…don’t.”

“Okay.” He leaned over to kiss the crown of her head. “I just wanted you to know that we were proud of you, but that we’re here to talk, too. We know how hard this must be and we want to be here if you need us, okay?”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Kya said bitterly. She didn’t have the energy to fight off her resentment, not now. “Because Izumi-“

“You have no idea how grateful she is, Kya-“

“But she doesn’t _get_ it!” Kya shot back, tucking her knees to her chest. “I throw away my entire _life_ so she can be happy, and I know I’m not supposed to want anything in return, but I just wanted to hear her acknowledge that she’s…” Kya paused to breathe. “That she’s the whole reason I’m doing this. How _insane_ it all is. That _she’s_ the reason I’m marrying some Earth Kingdom prince I’ve never met and who could very well be a sociopath!”

Zuko didn’t say anything for a moment, and Kya almost wanted to keep talking, but she didn’t feel like explaining herself, either – didn’t want to tell him that she’d been lying when she said she’d done it solely for Izumi’s sake.

She _had_ wanted her sister to be happy, but more than anything, she’d done it because she feared herself, feared her bloodline, feared that she’d be the latest in a long line of people history would remember without kindness. But she knew her father held the same fear, no matter how deeply he buried it, and she would not burden him with the knowledge that, in spite of his best efforts, it had ensnared her, too.

So she fell silent.

“I hate this too, Kya,” Zuko finally admitted. “You deserve so much better but…”

“Our people deserve better than war,” Kya said gravely.

Zuko glanced up at her, and his eyes locked on hers as if they’d never seen her before.

“I…I don’t even know what to say.”

  
“You don’t have to say anything, Dad.” Kya released her legs, letting them dangle over the edge of the bed, and straightened her spine. “I did what any good Princess would’ve.” She swallowed hrd. “What any good sister would’ve.”

“No, Kya, this is more than-“

“Dad. It’s just what I had to do. Not that deep.”

Zuko didn’t have the heart to tell her that he _knew_ no sacrifice of this magnitude was ever so blasé. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the tear-tracks drying on her face – the face that reminded him so much of his beloved’s that it made his heart ache – reminded him, eerily, of the starburst on his chest.

_It’s_ always _deeper than that,_ he wanted to say, but he didn’t.

“If it’s any concession, we’re making sure the Earth Queen lets you remain in the Fire Nation if you want to,” he finally said. “Hyun would come to live here, rather than the other way around. He’s not the heir, so we think we can make that work.”

“Thanks, Dad.” It didn’t help much, but Kya was grateful that they were even trying. “But I’m not really expecting anyone to try to make this easier for me.”

“But you _deserve_ that much, Kya.” He looked up at her again, trying and failing to catch her eye. “We can’t thank you enough for agreeing to do this. Really, Kya.”

“It was nothing,” she lied.

_It’s going to take everything I have,_ she thought, more truthfully, in the privacy of her own mind. _But for once in my life, I’m going to get something right._

* * *

Realistically, Izumi should’ve gone just about anywhere else with this.

She should’ve talked to her fiancé, who knew how close to home this all hit. She should’ve talked to her father, who knew a thing or two about political marriages. She should’ve talked to Hina, even, who knew firsthand what the border situation was like. She should’ve gone out to greet her brother and sister-in-law, or asked Sana to spar (she direly needed to work on her Firebending and besides, it’d be cathartic for Izumi).

But instead she was here, on the steps of the Shrine of the Sages, unburdening her conscience to a boy seven years her junior who’d always seen fit to act a bit too familiar. 

“I don’t know how I’m going to live with this, Gyatso,” she sighed for what had to have been the eighth time so far. “We don’t know _anything_ about this Prince Hyun, and-“

“How is that possible?” Gyatso rested his chin against his hand and gazed thoughtfully in her direction out of the corner of his eye. Hina and Aang’s youngest had always had a somewhat detached air about him, a product of the spiritual intuition he’d picked up from his father (never mind that he bent fire and not air). Most thought him odd or at least a touch antisocial, but Izumi knew him better than that: he simply lived in his head, as she’d learned the hard way when her fourteen-year-old self had decided she’d be his firebending tutor whether anyone liked it or not.

(No one had, but no one had exactly stopped her, either.)

Sometimes, she’d discovered over the years, that made him irritating to work with, but other times it made him shockingly wise for someone eight years her junior. She could use that right now.

“How’s what possible? Not knowing Hyun?” Izumi shrugged. “I mean, we’ve met him before, but we don’t _know_ him. When we’ve been in the same place, it’s never been more than a passing glance at a diplomatic function.”

“Well, Kya seems to be sure that he’s not _all_ that bad, or she wouldn’t have agreed to marry him,” Gyatso reasoned.

“It was a split-second decision made on my behalf, Gyatso. I don’t think she was even considering that when she said she’d do it.”

“Well, she _is_ a master waterbender,” he pointed out. “She can take care of herself.”

“But she shouldn’t _have_ to!” Izumi slammed her fist against the stone step she sat on, barely recoiling at the pain that raced up her arm on impact. “She shouldn’t have to worry that her husband is going to hurt her or use her for political gain or just generally be unbearable. She shouldn’t have to resign herself to a lifetime of unhappiness because of _me!”_

“She shouldn’t,” Gyatso agreed with a glint in his eyes that Izumi couldn’t quite place. “But it’s noble of her to have taken that burden from you.”

“More noble than I even knew she could be,” Izumi admitted. “I feel awful just thinking about…about…”

“About?”

“About the fact that I would _never_ have thought Kya had this in her.”

“It’s okay, Zumi. None of us thought she did.” Gyatso rested his palm against her forearm and Izumi almost pulled away – there was something strange about the tenderness with which he’d touched her and the ease with which he’d decided to – but, figuring he had good intentions, she didn’t. “I’m proud of her for that.”

“Me, too,” Izumi said softly. His hand still rested, hot and strangely clammy, against her arm. “She’s…she’s always been the strongest of us. Strongest bender, strongest will, strongest convictions. This is just…another way she’s stronger than I could ever be.”

“Don’t say that, Zumi.” Gyatso _finally_ pulled his hand away and looked up at his friend imploringly. “We all know that you would’ve done the same in a second if the roles were reversed. I mean…if not for Hideo, you would have probably married Hyun without a second thought, right?”

He sounded utterly miserable, saying that, but Izumi didn’t stop to think about why. “Of course I would have.”

His shoulders slumped, as hard as he tried not to let her see it. “It isn’t your fault that you’re already engaged. Or that Kya wanted to keep it that way.”

“But-“

“There’s no point in ‘buts,’ Zumi. This is out of your control.” He pulled his legs up until they were crossed on the step and she briefly wondered how he managed to fit like that until she realized that it was just _him,_ that Gyatso was…well, Gyatso. “You aren’t going to make anything better by worrying about her.”

“Gyatso, she’s giving up her only chance at finding love for me, and we don’t even know what Prince Hyun is like. How can I _not_ be worried?”

“Your sister’s doing something most people wouldn’t ever be able to. I guess…” Gyatso thought for a moment. “I guess you just have to trust that she’s going to be rewarded for it.”

“That’s a pretty sketchy assumption to hang your hat on when my sister’s _life_ hangs in the balance.”

“What is done will be repaid in full,” he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “All action invites consequence, good or ill. Trust that your sister’s good deed will be repaid in kind.”

“But how?”

Gyatso didn’t elaborate, and Izumi knew better than to ask; these strange bouts of aged wisdom were few and far between, and pressing wouldn’t get him to elaborate.

“Accept the gift she’s giving you by doing this, Izumi,” he finished, and she knew he wouldn’t say anything more.

Together, they sat silent on the steps of the Shrine, staring out into the muggy afternoon – two unlikely friends armed only with an eleven-year history, facing a world that grew more uncertain by the day. 


	3. If You Can't Take the Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kya and Prince Hyun meet, Hyun proves himself both a gentleman and a pain in Kya's neck, and Izumi has words about all of this. Yuna seeks Katara's advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE HMS HYUNYA IS GO FOR LAUNCH. 
> 
> Also, Yuna Oyama has my entire heart. That is all. I cannot believe that I'm actually managing to make myself equally invested in six out of these eight kiddos (sorry, Saki and Sana) as WELL as Hyun and both sets of parents...this is my Infinity War, I suppose. If your favorite character or pairing doesn't get screen time in one chapter, I will do my very best to get them a part in the next - I specifically outlined to try to balance the characters and arcs and pairings, but they're up to debate, tbh - so let me know whose stories you want more of!

**A Month Later**

“You ready for this?”

“Absolutely not,” Kya huffed, tugging at the too-tight sash of her gown. “For all I know, this guy could be insane, and this dress _definitely_ is.”

“You might want to loosen that sash a little,” Izumi suggested, eying her sister’s dress worriedly. “Can you even breathe?”

“I _tried.”_ Kya crossed her arms. “But my maids wouldn’t let me. Kept saying that tiny waists were fashionable in Ba Sing Se, the Prince would find it attractive and his mother would think it was proper, bla bla bla.”

“Well, that’s just stupid,” Izumi said frankly. “Luckily you’ll be able to sit, though, right?”

“I-“

“The delegation is on its way up, Kya.” Their mother poked her head through the door. “You know what to do.”

“Of course,” Kya said flatly, because she _did,_ even if she had no intention whatsoever of actually doing any of what she’d been told. After all, it wasn’t as if it _mattered_ what Prince Hyun thought of her when they weren’t exactly being given a choice.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but – traitorously – wonder about him. Was he witty, well-spoken, intelligent, or merely an imbecile? Was he good-looking? Was he-

“Queen Lian, Prince San, PrinceHyun, and Foreign Minister To, Your Excellencies,” the servant who’d been escorting the negotiating party to the parlor where they’d meet announced, and that put an end to Kya’s train of thought.Their parents entered close behind – they’d gone ahead to greet the party, something they often did in an attempt to smooth over tensions – and took the seats they’d been assigned for strategic purposes far in advance.

“It is an honor to host you, Your Majesty,” Izumi said, bowing stiffly. Kya didn’t repeat the words but she bowed as well. “My family and I look forward to reaching a settlement.”

Queen Lian sized Izumi up and grunted. “Why can’t Hyun have that one?” she said. “I like that one.”

“Crown Princess Izumi is engaged,” Kya stepped in. “It was simply not feasible.”

“Hm. I’m not satisfied with that answer, but one may never say I am not merciful.” The queen took a seat, shaking her head haughtily and setting the ornaments that dangled from her bun in motion. “Now.Lord Zuko, Lady Katara, what is this revision of the terms that you wrote me about? I thought we’d settled them.”

“We never settled anything, Your Majesty.” Katara didn’t even try to keep the ice from her voice. “Your terms began and ended with ‘give us your daughter.’”

“And what more is there to discuss? It’s a simple arrangement. You give us your daughter’s hand in marriage and a promise to send troops to stabilize the border skirmish, we do the same.”

“This is our daughter’s future we’re discussing, Queen Lian,” Katara said sharply. “We’re not going to allow you to dictate the terms of the engagement without our input.”

“It’s my son’s future, too!” the Queen protested. “Is his future less important than hers?”

  
At that, Kya stole a glance over at the settee where the queen sat, flanked by her two sons. San, the older (already-married, thank _Agni),_ was a reedy young man, pale and jumpy and thin with a disconcerting glint in his green eyes. But Hyun…

Kya swallowed hard, trying not to look for too long, but it didn’t work. Hyun caught her staring and shot her a subtle, encouraging smile – _hi,_ he seemed to be saying, _I think you’re pretty too –_ and her face flushed, because she knew nothing about this man but he was _unfairly_ good-looking. He was olive-skinned and green-eyed, tanned and built as only one who spent a great deal of time training outdoors would be. He was tall, his frame muscular, and though his clothes were impeccably fussy, his eyes were warm and inviting. He was nervous, she knew by the way he fidgeted with his clothes, but he seemed almost excited to meet her.

It was a strange idea, and Kya looked down at her lap, mortified, at the very thought of it. She was no longer sure if the flush in her cheeks was related to his eyes on her or the obscenely-tight sash cutting off her air supply, and the room grew warmer and fuzzier the longer she tried to tune out her parents’ words as they negotiated. She couldn’t care less what the terms were so long as she’d be treated fairly and given ample room to arrange a mysterious demise for the Prince if she were not (though, right now, Kya thought she’d rather off the queen and force San to annul the marriage– he looked like a pushover –than mar such a beautiful face). So the negotiations were utterly irrelevant to her, and she simply tuned them out.

She was sure she’d have lost focus if she didn’t, for the room was growing fuzzy. Too short of breath to care about the appearance of it, she reached for the tie of her sash, but no matter how much she pulled at it, it wouldn’t budge. She squirmed like something was crawling up her spine, trying to get the clasp loose, and the Queen briefly stopped shouting at her parents to glare at her.

“Kya, are you all right?” Zuko asked, finally taking notice of her strange behavior.

“I’m…I’m…” Kya stammered, gasping for breath. “Yeah, I’m-“

The world faded to black.

* * *

“So, I know this isn’t exactly an ideal way for us to meet, but, um, hi, I’m Hyun, and-“

“Wha’?” Kya muttered, blinking a few times to make sure she wasn’t seeing things when she came to. She felt something solid and warm against her body and strong arms wrapped around her, and when. She looked up it was those green eyes that met hers- “wait, are you _carrying_ me? Why are you carrying me? Put me _down!”_ Kya squirmed furiously, too distracted to notice that the sash of her gown had been undone. “Why are my parents even allowing this? You are being _far_ too forward!”

Hyun looked almost wounded. “You fainted, Princess,” he said. “Your sister said your dress was too tight or something. So I caught you and now we’re going to the infirmary.”

“I don’t need an infirmary,” Kya said groggily, going limp with exhaustion she hadn’t realized she felt. “And thanks, but I can walk.”

“You were unconscious, Kya.”

  
“Yeah, but I’m awake now.” Kya crossed her arms. “This is all real chivalrous of you, but I’ve never even spoken to you, so I’d rather you didn’t _handle me_ this way.”

“You’re speaking to me now, Princess.”

“Are you _always_ this annoying?”

“Are _you_ always this rude?”

“You’re lucky you’re good-looking,” Kya spat.

“You think I’m good-looking?”

“I have eyes, Hyun.”

“Um. Thank you?”

“Don’t get it twisted, I still think you’re being flagrantly inappropriate right now.”

“Wow, I’m _so_ sorry that I wanted to take care of my fiancée!” Hyun unceremoniously released Kya’s legs and she stumbled out of his arms so hastily that she nearly fell again. He caught her shoulder, steadying her.

“You have no right to call me that!”

“Um. Did you miss the part where _we’re getting married in three months?”_ now that Hyun could meet her eyes, he glared at her. “Because that’s what a fiancée is, last I heard…”

_“Three months?!?”_

“Oh, right. You weren’t listening.” Hyun crossed his arms. “The wedding is in three months – fastest we could get ready for it – and we’re going to live in the Fire Nation, and I’m to be tried before the court if I ever so much as lay a finger on you-“

“You just laid every single finger you _had_ on me, Prince. When’s the trial?”

“You know, I would find your sass _extremely_ attractive if you didn’t hate me so much.”

“I don’t hate you. I hate this arrangement and you happen to be a part of it.”

“Oh, wow, _such_ an improvement.” Hyun rolled his eyes again and Kya felt almost envious that he had, evidently, not been saddled with an etiquette tutor who’d implored him never to do that the way she had. It would’ve been so _useful_ right now.

Kya locked eyes on his – she wasn’t blushing this time, not knowing what she did – and wouldn’t budge, nor would he. For a moment they just stood there, glaring at each other; their parents and siblings, who’d hung back to discuss something, caught up and simply raised their eyebrows at the two before moving on.They were flagrantly breaking protocol and everyone knew it, but no one, not even the Earth Queen, seemed to care enough to chastise them.

“I hope you know that I’m not going to go easy on you,” Kya said, her voice low and deadly with the thrill of…whatever this was. It felt almost like sparring, bickering with Hyun.

“Oh, I’d expect nothing less, Princess,” Hyun shot back. “But be warned that I’ve never backed down from a challenge before.”

“And _you_ should be warned that I never lose,” Kyasaid, smirking. “Don’t expect to break that streak.”

She knew without a single word in reply from Hyun that he planned to.

* * *

“So…you and Prince Hyun, huh?”

“Shut up, Izumi.” Kya crossed her arms, sitting up against the pillows of the infirmary bed they’d _insisted_ on confining her to until they could be sure that her fainting spell had been nothing more than the result of an ill-fitting gown. “What are we, fifteen?”

“Well, at least he’s a good guy, right?” Izumi shrugged. “He practically dove across the carpet to catch you when he saw that you were going to pass out. It was all very gentlemanly.”

“He…did?” Kya’s cheeks flushed. “Why would he do that?”

“You’re blushing!” Izumi cackled, elbowing Kya’s arm. Grumpily, Kya wondered when her stoic older sister had developed this playful streak. “Oh, this is _so-“_

“Izumi, I can’t stand him.”

“Wait, what?”

“I said, ‘I can’t stand him.’” Kya took a deep breath so as to retain some modicum of her composure. “He’s overly-familiar, and he’s cocky, and he’s _way_ too impertinent, and I don’t _care_ how good-looking he is, he’s an _irritating little sand-fly_ and I can’t stand him.”

“But he _is_ good-looking.” Izumi’s open teasing had ebbed back into her usual subtle snark. “And he likes you.”

“No he doesn’t, Izumi.”

“Kya, I want to ask you something.” Izumi looked at her pointedly. “How did Ryuji act around Yuna when they were teenagers?”

  
“Um…he got all shy and stared at her a lot?” Kya narrowed her eyes. “What does that have to do with Hyun?”

“And what did Hideo act like when we first met?”

“Again, got all shy and stared a lot. And again, what does this have to do with Hyun?”

“How is Hyun acting around you?” Izumi asked.

“Um…he’s making it his personal mission to annoy me as much as is humanly possible,” Kya said flatly. “If shyness and staring means someone likes you, wouldn’t that mean that he _didn’t?”_

“No, because Hideo and Ryu were introverts, but Hyun is obviously not.” Izumi’s eyes glinted. “And you know what all three of those cases have in common?”

“This ought to be good.”

“ _Staring,”_ Izumi said with a knowing smirk. “He couldn’t take his eyes off of you.”

“But-“

“I feel a lot better about this now,” Izumi continued, her smile softening. “I was so worried that you’d end up with someone who wouldn’t be good for you, but…I guess I was wrong to worry.” 

“Oh, no, you definitely weren’t,” Kya grumbled.

“But he’s kind, and he likes you.” Izumi elbowed her arm. “And he’s as saucy and impertinent as you are.”

“That is _really_ not a good thing.”

Izumi left with nothing more than a knowing smile.

* * *

“Auntie Katara?”

Yuna almost recoiled at the sound of her old name for her mother-in-law – it seemed strange, now that she and Ryuji were married – but she wasn’t sure what else to call her, so it would have to do.

  
“Yuna? Come in!” Katara called from inside her office, and Yuna pushed the door open, more nervous than she had any reason to be.

“Um, hi,” she said, almost shy. It had been a while since she’d really talked to Katara and part of her worried that she might still be upset about the elopement. “I, um…I wanted to talk to you.”

“Of course, Yuna.” Katara smiled tightly, gesturing for her to take a seat. Relieved that she’d been happy to see her and not, like Hina might’ve, gone off on a tirade about the circumstances of her marriage, Yuna pretended not to notice that her eyes were red. She’d obviously cried in the time since Kya and Hyun’s meeting had ended several hours ago. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, yeah, nothing like that,” Yuna reassured her. “I just…wanted to ask you if you could check on the baby.”

  
“Oh!” Katara’s eyes lit up, and as much as Yuna had come here for her own benefit, she was glad to be able to provide a distraction, too. “Of course I can. Everything is all right, though, isn’t it?” she peered into Yuna’s eyes, almost paranoid. _She’s probably freaking out about all her kids after being forced to marry off Kya,_ Yuna realized.

“As far as I know.” She smoothed a palm over her stomach, smiling to herself. “But it never hurts to check, right?”

“Has Ryuji not been doing that? I _told_ him-“

“No, no, he has.” Yuna had never been more grateful for Katara’s insistence upon training _all_ of her waterbending children in healing, boys and girls alike, than she had been these past months. “But…he’s not as good at it as you. And he doesn’t get itlike you would.”

“Oh, I get it, all right,” Katara muttered, shaking her head. “Did this five times.”

“I can’t even imagine.” Yuna blanched. “Just this one time’s been hard enough.”

“The first us always the hardest,” Katara said, uncapping her waterskin. “Now, do you know anything? How far along you are, that sort of thing?”

“Close to seven months.” Yuna glanced down at the swell of her abdomen and smiled. “And we know it’s a boy. But not much else.”

“Is it the health of the baby that you want to check on, then?” Katara asked, and when Yuna nodded, she bent the water from her waterskin. Wordlessly Yuna lifted her tunic – she’d taken to wearing a knee-length cotton kimono over loose pants now, too encumbered by her Air Nomad robes – to let Katara examine her. Her shoulders, which she hadn’t even realized were tensed, relaxed at the cool comfort of the water against her flushed skin. Katara closed her eyes to concentrate, and after a moment, she smiled, opening them again to meet Yuna’s.

“Um…is he okay?” Yuna finally tore her eyes away from her belly and glanced up nervously.

“Seems to be,” Katara reassured her. “I was looking for his heartbeat, that’s all.”

“You found it, I take it?”

Katara nodded. “I did, and it’s just fine. But _you…”_ in one fluid motion, Katara directed the water back into its container and capped it. “You’re burning up. I was the same way when I had Izumi.”

“Does that mean he’s a firebender?” Yuna asked, trying not to sound disappointed; she’d tried not to hope for an airbender, knowing she’d love her son no less if he bent any other element or none at all, but she still had, a little bit. It was hard not to, given how much was riding on the two of them. 

“There’s a decent chance,” Katara told her. “And if you think about it, he _does_ have more Fire Nation heritage than anything else, since he’s got it on both sides. Makes sense.” She didn’t even have to look up to see the apprehension on Yuna’s face. “But there’s no need to worry, Yuna. You’re young. If I know the two of you, this one won’t be the last.”

“Well, I suppose not.” Yuna blushed, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “I…we did talk about that. Wanting more kids.” Still a little flustered, she smiled sheepishly. “We always joked about having four, because, you know…well. We have all four elements between us, so we could have one of each.”

“Spirits help you if you actually do,” Katara chuckled. “Not that I’d ever complain about more grandbabies, of course.”

“But I don’t know yet.” Yuna bit her lip. “Say we keep trying and we still don’t have an airbender. Then what?”

“Well, Yangchen and Gyatso have Air Nomad heritage, too,” Katara pointed out. “And so would your children. It’s not as if you’re the _only_ one whose child could be an airbender.”

“You really think Yangchen would ever have a kid?” Yuna rolled her eyes fondly. “Please. Chennie’s hated kids since she found out she was going to be a middle child.”

Katara grimaced. “Yeah, actually…I’m not sure whether I’d even want to know how that would go. But Gyatso-“

“Yeah, maybe.” Yuna rubbed her belly with absentminded worry. “Well, we’ll see.”

“Do you want a piece of advice on that front?”

“Please.”

Katara rested her hand on Yuna’s shoulder. “Don’t think about that right now.”

“But…”

“Are you excited, Yuna?”

Yuna nodded. “Yeah, of course. I’ve always wanted to be a mom, you know that.”

“Exactly.” Katara smiled, squeezing her shoulder. “Focus on that, not the what-ifs. Enjoy this time. Enjoy a sleep schedule that’s still at least a little bit regular before it all goes off the rails.”

“It’s kind of hard to enjoy anything right now, what with…all of this going on.” Yuna shrugged. “But I do know what you’re saying.”

“It really is,” Katara sighed. “I just…hate feeling so powerless.”

  
“How’d the meeting go?” Yuna asked cautiously, wondering if she should breach the subject and deciding to go for it. “If you don’t mind me asking?”

“Well, Hyun seems nice enough, so that’s one weight off,” Katara told her. “They were bickering within ten minutes of their first meeting. Reminds me of something.” Her smile was supposed to be private but Yuna knew exactly what she was talking about anyways. “But his mother…”

“Yeah, I’ve heard things about the Earth Queen.” Yuna grimaced. “That bad?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

Yuna leaned back against the low backrest of the settee. “Tell me more. What’s this Prince Hyun like?”

Katara was only too happy to oblige.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can blame the corset scene in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie for this.


	4. Love and Peril

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuna and Ryuji reflect on Kya's plight. Hina briefs Zuko, Katara, and Izumi on the status of the situation in Matori Province. Aang notices Gyatso's odd behavior and has a talk with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys...I'm obsessed with this. HELP.

“Yuna? You up yet?”

“Ugh, how are you so _awake?”_ Yuna groaned, shifting uncomfortably as she felt her husband’s arms wrapped around her abdomen. “I barely slept.”

“I didn’t sleep at all,” Ryuji sighed. “So I’m really not either.”

“Mm.” She snuggled back into his arms, sighing contentedly as he rested his chin on her shoulder. “Well, then. Good morning, Ryu.” 

“Morning, beautiful,” he murmured. “This is weird, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“Being here,” he said, brushing his lips against the divot under her ear. She shivered, squirming in his grip to get closer, closer, impossibly closer. “In the Fire Nation, with you.”

“We grew up in the Fire Nation together, Ryu,” she reminded him.

“ _Married_ to you,” he amended. “We thought that would never happen, remember?”

“Oh.” Yuna turned to face him, reaching to caress his cheek. “Well…look where we ended up, hm?”

“Just…back in Caldera after eloping and staying away three years because my sister’s being married off?” Ryuji asked. “Yup, just what I expected when I thought about being married to you.”

“Then what _did_ you picture?” Yuna asked, nudging her cheek into Ryuji’s open palm. He smiled softly, resting his other hand at the small of her back and tracing up the length of her tattoo from the base of her back to her forehead.

“Mm…a small wedding, then moving out of the city. Somewhere quiet, close enough to visit our family,” he said, stroking his thumb along her jawline. “Just a roof over our heads and a safe place to just be ourselves, nothing fancy. A couple of children.” Ryuji’s other hand drifted from her back to her side, resting against the curve of her abdomen, and she smiled at the way his eyes lit up in wonder even after so long.

“That’s rich, coming from a _prince,”_ Yuna teased, leaning upwards to kiss him. “It’s a nice dream, though.”

“Well, ‘quiet’ was never going to happen for the two of us, was it?” Ryuji asked, pulling her in for another kiss. “And we’ve got the children part covered.”

  
“We do,” Yuna replied, pressing her face to the curve of Ryuji’s neck. “And the visiting part.”

“But…not for the reason any of us would’ve wanted,” he sighed. “You talked to Mom, right?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“What’d she say?” Ryuji asked, shifting so his hands encircled her waist. “How’s Kya holding up?”

“She said he was kind. Hyun, I mean,” Yuna said softly, stroking his soft, inky locks. “They argued, but…he was…chivalrous, I think that was the word she used.”

“Argued? Already?” Ryuji almost laughed, but stopped short of it. “What happened?”

Yuna cringed – she’d been trying to skip over the fainting part of the story, but that didn’t seem possible anymore. “There… _may_ have been an incident with a dress being too tight, and she _might_ have passed out, and he was the one who caught her and when she came to in his arms she just about bit his head off.” She didn’t even want to look at Ryuji, unsure how he’d react to that. “At least…that was how your mom explained it.”

“Is she all right now?”

  
“Oh, of course. It was only the dress.”

“Oh, good. So…she gave him a piece of her mind?”

“Apparently. Said he obviously likes her.” Yuna squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I think it’s a good sign. Kya won’t pick a fight with someone she doesn’t think is worth arguing with.”

“Do you think she’s going to be okay?” Ryuji glanced down at her, blue eyes wide with worry. “Do you think she’s going to be happy?”

“I hope so, Ryu,” Yuna said. “I think…I think he’s going to treat her right, but…”

“That’s not the same as being happy,” Ryuji sighed, pulling Yuna as close as he could get her. “I just…can’t stand the idea of her being stuck her whole life, you know?”

“Of course,” Yuna replied, for a moment simply pausing to relish the comfortable tenderness of the moment. She’d loved Ryuji so long, and thought his love to be out of her reach for so many years, that it almost amazed her, waking up in his bed, his arms around her, their child growing between them. “I guess all we can do is hope they’ll learn to love each other.”

“Everyone’s been going on about how unfair it is that she’s being used as a political pawn,” Ryuji said. “And I get it. It _is._ But…well, you know Kya and I have always been close, and I know how restless she is, and…I’m more worried that she’ll just be unhappy.” His lips brushed her forehead. “That she’ll never get what I did.”

“Me, too, and I wish we weren’t the only ones who saw that.” Yuna shook her head. “Everyone’s so worried about what this _means,_ as if she’s a symbol and not a woman with a heart and opinions who might have every reason to hate this guy. But…what’s a symbol if she isn’t happy?”

“Exactly,” Ryuji murmured. “I can’t help but think about what it would be like if I hadn’t gotten to be with you, if I’d been the one married off-“

“Hey…” Yuna took both of his wrists in her hands to still them. “Don’t worry about things that never happened.”

“Are we selfish for that?” Ryuji asked. “For…being happy when she might never be? For wanting to keep it that way?” 

“No, Ryuji,” Yuna murmured, and kissed him as softly as she knew how; when she pulled back her palm remained, pressed to his cheek. He held on at the wrist, sinking into her touch. “No, we’re not selfish, I don’t think.”

“I just…feel bad,” Ryuji admitted, “and then I think about Kya, and how easily that could’ve been me if not for you…”

“But it _wasn’t._ Remember? We made it, Ryu. We’re here now. _I’m_ here now.” Her breath caught in her throat as he took her palm from his cheek and kissed its center, but she continued. “I’m here, and I’m yours, and we’re happy, Ryu. You hear that?” she pressed her palm to the center of his chest now, letting his heartbeat thump against it. “You have me, Ryuji, always, and I won’t let anything change that.”

“I love you,” he breathed, because there was simply nothing more to be said. A hush fell over the room as he pulled her into him and kissed her, one hand cradling her head while the other traced the arrows running up her back, down her arms, across her legs. “Yuna Oyama, how did I get so lucky?”

“You’re so dramatic,” she laughed, but she melted into the kiss, reveling in the coolness of his hands and the gentleness of his touch. She’d waited half of her life for a moment like this, wondering if she simply wasn’t cut out for love when she had a nation to rebuild, but he’d taken a chance, they’d taken a risk, and now they were here again. Could’ve-beens, hypothetical scenarios – they seemed so _irrelevant_ now when he was beside her, real and solid in her arms.

And while they were real, she would enjoy him.

* * *

“This isn’t getting any better, is it?”

Zuko rested his chin against his fist, his eyes heavy with weariness, and it was all he could do to blink imploringly up at his Spymistress. He was so close to drifting off-

“No, it’s not.” Hina’s voice cut the haze of sleep at least enough to fend it off for a moment, for which he was grateful. “Granted, we knew this would happen, but no, it hasn’t improved. The tension isn’t letting up.”

“Wait, walk me through this again,” Izumi cut in, more alert than either of her parents. They’d lost more sleep than they cared to admit over their daughter’s impending marriage; Izumi, though she felt guilty as anyone, had not. “Why aren’t we trying to stabilize the situation ourselves?”

“Mostly, it’s a matter of stakes. As I’m sure you remember, the Matori conflict started as a very minor skirmish between a band of roving bandits who’d illegally crossed into Fire Nation territory and the two farming villages they’d pillaged,” Hina explained. “It’s obviously escalated, and now there’s growing anti-Earth National sentiment in the region. Given how many Earth Nationals live in the area already, that kind of tension is going to be ugly when it boils over. But the fact is that it’s a relatively small conflict, and it _hasn’t_ boiled over yet, and we have a short window of time to settle the negotiations before it becomes too much to control.”

“But there could easily still be an uptick in violence there, even if it’s not a full-on bloodbath,” Izumi protested. “Why aren’t we stopping it before _anything_ happens, not just the worst-case scenario?”

“Izumi, the Earth Queen has already shown herself to be completely unstable,” Zuko told her. “If we do anything she sees as violating the terms of the settlement, she might back out, and that would leave us completely on our own. We agreed to act jointly to stabilize the situation and as unfortunate as it is, things will only get worse if we don’t wait for their help.”

“Okay.” It was hard for Izumi to swallow that, the idea that lives might have to be lost to maintain the delicate balance they’d struck with the mercurial Earth Queen, but she knew she had no choice. “So once the settlement is in place, what are we going to do to stabilize things?”

“Ideally, our approach will be more ideological than militant,” Hina said. “First, we jointly agree to respect the sovereignty of each other’s borders, which takes care of the problem of roving bandits waltzing into our territory whenever there’s a drought. Then, the Fire Nation denounces anti-Earth National sentiment and take steps to prevent further violence against foreign-born or ethnically-mixed citizens in the border regions. And at the same time, the Earth Kingdom agrees to respect our borders more than it has thus far and sends a task force to break up the bandit gangs that’ve been pillaging the province. In theory, it’ll be able to nip the tensions in the bud. In practice…”

“I’m not sure if it’ll solve the problem, but it’s the best we have,” Katara told her daughter. “Any changes in the situation, Hina?”

“No, more of the same.” Hina frowned, pawing through a stack of papers on her desk. “My agents have been reporting that the tensions between villagers of Earth National and Fire Nation descent are still high. And just this morning I got a whole stack of reports on crimes against Earth Nationals committed in the region – vandalism, property damage, harassment, that sort of thing. Nothing violent yet, but extremely troublesome nonetheless.” Izumi noted the way Hina’s lips pursed in spite of her neutral expression and wondered if this was bothering her – she had both Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom heritage, after all. “Our theory’s proving to be correct, it seems.”

“What theory?” Izumi asked, feeling rather hopelessly out-of-the-loop. Her parents didn’t always invite her to briefings, but today they had, saying she needed the experience; she was paying for that missed time now.

“Same one I mentioned earlier. I’m calling it the Bubble Hypothesis,” Hina explained. “Think of the problem like a bubble. It’ll get thinner and thinner the more air you blow into it, right? But once you start blowing, there’s a margin of thinness between staying intact and popping. If you’re within that margin, the bubble won’t pop, even if it’s stretched dangerously thin. But once you let the bubble pop, there’s no going back.” Hina glanced over at Izumi to see if she was getting it. “The air in the bubble is time. We can let a certain amount of time go by without letting the bubble pop, but not a second more.”

“So you’re saying the bubble hasn’t popped yet and that’s why you’re fine with waiting until after the wedding to do anything?”

  
“Essentially, yes.”

“Okay, then. What happens when the bubble pops?” Izumi challenged.

  
Her parents exchanged a worried glance that told her all she needed to know.

“Nothing you’d ever want to live through, Princess Izumi,” Hina told her.

* * *

“Were you ever planning to tell me why exactly you have been sulking around like a drenched cat-owl for the past month?”

Gyatso’s eyes snapped open at the sound of his father’s voice and, though he didn’t move, he was alert now. “I don’t sulk,” he said, legs still crossed in the lotus position. “I’m just being more attentive to my spiritual needs.” 

“Your…spiritual needs.” Aang shook his head, taking a seat beside Gyatso on the lip of the fountain. “That sounds like an excuse. Even _I_ wouldn’t have gotten away with that one at your age.”

“At my age, no one would’ve dared to accuse you of ‘sulking,’” Gyatso countered drily.

“That’s not true at all, Gyatso.” Aang’s eyes drifted to the middle distance. “Your mother would’ve.”

Gyatso’s face fell. “Doesn’t count if she was your girlfriend.”

“Oh, is that what this is about?” Aang asked. “Girl trouble?”

“’Girl trouble,’ as you put it, is evidence of a pitiable willingness to bow to one’s basest desires,” Gyatso replied, as if this were an absolutely typical statement and nothing at all strange. “So no. I do not have ‘girl trouble.’”

“Gyatso, that’s…not a thing,” Aang said, unsure whether to be amused or concerned. “What exactly has you so convinced of that?”

  
“There’s no easier way to ensure the neglect your spiritual well-being than by becoming involved in… _romantic entanglements.”_

“Favoring your spiritual well-being so completely will only hurt you in the end, you know.” Aang clasped his son’s shoulder, hoping it’d encourage him and jar some sense into his addled brain all at once. “Love is a beautiful thing, Gyatso. I wouldn’t be half the man I am today if I hadn’t fallen in love with Hina when I did. Besides…” he smirked. “You wouldn’t even _be_ here if I hadn’t had ‘girl trouble’ when I was your age.”

“That’s different!” Gyatso insisted. “You had a responsibility to rebuild your culture. But _I_ would be surrendering to my worst impulses if I were to-“

“All right, out with it.” Aang dropped his hands from Gyatso’s shoulders and crossed his arms. “Who are you having an existential crisis over?”

“Someone I shouldn’t,” was all he would say.

“Well, given that you just told me that you think _every ‘_ romantic entanglement,’ as you said, is off-limits to you, you’re going to need to be a little bit more specific.” 

“She’s with someone else. That what you wanted to hear?”

Aang winced. “Oh…”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Well, son, letting go is an important lesson that we all-“

“I _can’t_ let go!”

Suddenly Gyatso wasn’t confused, nor brooding, nor peevish. Suddenly Gyatso Oyama was _furious,_ and his fist connected with the bamboo mat he’d been meditating on as his face grew hot with rage.

  
“I _can’t_ let go,” he repeated, almost shaking. “I can’t. I’ve _tried,_ Dad. I’ve tried _everything._ I’ve tried every ritual and read every sacred text I could find, and none of them made her go away. I’ve meditated day and night – nothing. I’ve even tried blowing off steam by sparring but all I can think about is _her,_ and it’s been _seven years!_ ”

“And you think that trying to deny yourself all hope of ever finding love at all is going to do the trick?” Aang asked gently.

“It _has_ to work.” Gyatso’s voice cracked and tears swam in his eyes, which only upset him further. “I can’t go on like this. She’s getting _married,_ and it isn’t right for me to feel like this about her, and…and…”

“We’re only able to grow when we do what we think is impossible, Gyatso.”

“But _how?”_ Gyatso asked desperately. “If nothing I’ve tried in all of seven years has helped me, what makes you think there’s anything I can do now?”

“Because you’re trying all of the wrong things.” Aang wondered, privately, if this girl whose mere existence was apparently such a torment to his son was who he thought she was, but he didn’t think it wise to press. “You’re trying to get rid of your feelings by force. You’re doing things to force her out of your head when that will never work.” He patted Gyatso’s arm. “The only way we can ever truly move on is by accepting that something isn’t going to work out.”

“But what if I _can’t?”_

“You said she’s getting married, right?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Then you’re either going to have to accept that she doesn’t feel the same way or else resign yourself to losing your mind.” He glanced over at Gyatso to see if he was listening. “Listen to me, Gyatso. Love is the greatest gift a person can give, but when it’s misplaced, it’s also the deadliest weapon a person can wield.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“I don’t think you do, son.”

“But-“

“Misplaced love is a danger to ourselves and to others,” Aang continued. “To others, because we will make no shortage of foolish, harmful decisions in the name of love. But to ourselves, too, because…well, our hearts can’t take the strain of loving the wrong thing forever.”

“What, so I’m just going to go crazy if I can’t get over her?”

“Not necessarily, but you won’t end up anywhere you want to be, I can tell you that.” Aang stood, brushing a few stray leaves from his robes. "There comes a time when moving on is the only choice you have." 

"It's never the only choice." 

"Unless you want to invite destruction, Gyatso, it is." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, foreshadowing here. 
> 
> also. anyone else LOVE writing Aang having learned his lesson from Katara and giving wise advice about letting go based on what he learned from that experience? bc I sure do.


	5. The Principle of the Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyun tries to talk his mother out of marrying him to Kya; Yangchen overhears something she shouldn't have; Izumi and Hideo have a quiet moment; Hyun tries to make things right with Kya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hate the Earth Queen, that is all.

“Mother…”

“Hyun, I’m not changing my mind.” The baubles dangling from Queen Lian’s hair ornaments clacked unpleasantly against each other as she shook her head. “This is the only way to guarantee that our peace terms will be honored. I know you can be rather dim about these things, Hyun, but you _must_ understand how necessary this is.”

“I _know_ that.” Hyun’s fists clenched in his robes and it took everything he had not to lose his temper or cry or _something_ untoward, if neither of those things. He hated this feeling, helpless before his anger and frustration; Hyun wanted to feel _good_ things, good like the taste of lychee ices on a hot day or the funny electricity he’d felt when his fiancée lit into him upon waking up in his arms. But now he had no choice but to feel the bad ones, simmering hot and dangerous in his stomach.

“Oh, do you?” Queen Lian cocked an incredulous eyebrow at her son.

“Yes, Mother, I _do,”_ he said as evenly as he could manage. “But I also understand that Princess Kya doesn’t want to go through with the marriage and we shouldn’t make her.”

“Well!” Queen Lian tutted incredulously. “Where in the Four Kingdoms did you get an idea like _that_ in your head?”

“Mother, I know this is supposed to help, but isn’t there another way to fix this?” Hyun tried again. “It just isn’t right to force her to marry me when she hates my guts!”

“You know nothing of politics, Hyun,” the Queen sighed. “Trust me, we tried everything in our power to get the Fire Nation to the table, but nothing worked. It’s this or all-out war.”

“It can’t be!” Hyun protested. “Lord Zuko and Lady Katara seemed reasonable, and they obviously love Kya. If she hates me – and _she does –_ I don’t think they’d turn down an offer to get her out of the marriage contract.”

“You know, yours is probably the best offer she’ll get,” Queen Lian sighed, pulling a compact mirror from her voluminous sleeve (she’d had pockets sewn into the sleeves of all of her robes for her cosmetics, something Hyun still could not understand the need for) and dabbing at her makeup. “You may be dim and stubborn but you won’t hurt her. The fact is, in a political match, that’s the best she’s going to be able to hope for.”

“But it shouldn’t be that way.”

“Well, it is, Hyun. Zuko and Katara might be mulishly intent on marrying off as many children in silly love-matches as they can – Izumi and her stuttering aristocrat, and don’t even get me _started_ on the Prince who ran off with the Avatar’s girl – but not all of them were ever going to be able to escape.” Queen Lian shrugged carelessly. “Kya got the short straw. Kya’s going to marry a man she won’t love just like I did – I, and countless princesses before her – and she’s going to make do with it.” She closed the mirror and glared at her son. “And so are you.”

“Mother, do you even know what you’re saying?”

“Perfectly.” The Queen snapped her compact back open and, fishing a case of rouge from her sleeve, dabbed it on her lips. “Just feel fortunate that _you_ like _her_ and stop whining about the only hard thing you’ll ever have to do in your life.”

“This _isn’t_ about me!” Hyun threw up his hands in frustration. “I knew ten minutes after I met Kya that I couldn’t live with myself if I put her in a cage. She’s going to go crazy if she’s held back or…forced to be something she’s not…”

“That’s all very romantic, Hyun, but the fact is that neither of you are ordinary.” The Queen’s face barely softened as she looked her son up and down, polished shoes to crestfallen face. “She is a princess, you are a prince, and your countries happen to be on the brink of war. Sacrifices have to be made.” She glared pointedly at him. “Even that of her happiness. Of _yours.”_

“I would be happy with her, Mother, I know I would,” Hyun said earnestly, “But she won’t be. I can’t do that to her.”

“Didn’t I tell you not to fall in love with her, Hyun?”

“Mother, I’ve known her for a day! Of course I’m not in love with her!”

“I would dispute that.”

“I don’t have to be in love with her to know that she’s special, Mother. And she deserves better than…being stuck.” Hyun’s shoulders rounded, his resistance waning. “Than being stuck with _me.”_

“I really don’t see what your problem is, Hyun. You’re being betrothed to a gorgeous young princess who you’re quite obviously rather besotted with. You’ll be royalty in two countries, and you’ll get a wife twice as gorgeous and six times as intelligent as anyone you’d ever have been able to find on your own in the process. Sure, she’ll be cold, but she’ll be _yours._ You ought to be _grateful,_ Hyun.”

“Mother, _enough.”_ If there had been any doubt in Hyun’s mind as to whether to go through with this before, there wasn’t now. “You are _not_ to speak of my fiancée that way.”

“If I don’t, someone else will, Hyun.”

“That doesn’t excuse anything, _Mother.”_

“You’d do best to watch your tongue, Hyun. What do you think Lord Zuko and Lady Katara are going to do once you marry Kya if they hear you speaking to anyone of importance so impertinently?”

“Probably thank me for standing up for their daughter.”

“Hyun, that’s not how it works.” She snapped her compact shut again. “There is no honor in love or politics.”

“Well, there _should_ be!”

“The ideas you get…” Queen Lian shook her head. “Here I was trying to raise a politician, and I ended up with this…overzealous gentleman. Truly tragic.”

“Call off the wedding, Mother.”

“Or what?” Queen Lian asked.

“Or I’ll…I’ll…”

“Exactly. You’ve got nothing.” The Queen shook her head with a deep, drawn-out sigh. “Like it or not, Hyun, you will marry the Princess.”

“I hope you realize what you’re doing to her, Mother.”

“Oh, believe me, Hyun, I do.” There was an odd, almost inhuman glint in her eyes that sent a shudder racing up his body as she glared at him. “But one cannot back away from what must be done.”

* * *

“…suspects a thing.” A muffled voice floated down the hall and Yangchen froze in her tracks, nearly dropping the moon peach buns she’d taken from the kitchen. It was all she could do not to let the butter knife that perched precariously on the edge of her plate slip noisily to the floor. “Least of all the Prince.”

_Prince?_ That could only be Ryuji or Hyun, and both were…relevant to her interests.

Kya planted her foot to sense the positions of the speakers and followed her seismic sense down the hall, towards the chambers where the Earth Queen’s delegation was being put up. Heartrate picking up, Yangchen set her plate down on a decorative end-table as quietly as she could and crept down the hall.

“Excellent,” a second voice replied. “And the negotiations have proceeded as expected?”

“With one exception.”

The second man’s voice was too low to pick up on now, even as Yangchen strained to hear him. The next words she heard were from the first man: “the couple is to remain in the Fire Nation,” he said.

“But we needed them in Ba Sing Se!”

“No, we didn’t,” the first man sighed. “What we _needed_ was a quick settlement and the Fire Lord and Lady’s trust. This concession gets us both.”

“But what if they-“

“They will not.” The second man cut the first off with a decisive air – Yangchen could almost see his chin jut into the air with the words. “Her parents are too distraught to notice anything, the Crown Princess already imagines us to be the personification of evil itself and still won’t guess, the two younger girls are simply not experienced enough in politics to know what to look for-“

“What of the Prince?”

“He’s only just arrived here, and I’d imagine he and his wife are too distracted by their impending parenthood to care much about his sister.”

_You couldn’t be more wrong,_ Yangchen wanted to shout, because _no one_ in this palace – not Katara and Zuko, who’d allowed it, nor Izumi, who was too pleased with her sister’s fiancé to care, nor the two youngest or Gyatso or her own parents – had been as shaken for Kya’s sake as Yuna and Ryuji had.

But she stayed silent and still.

“I would be worried about the Spymistress, myself,” the second man continued. “I’m sure you remember what she did to the Phoenix Society.”

“Yeah, what _are_ we doing about Oyama?” youthful apprehension had slipped into the other man’s tone. _Interesting. He’s nervous,_ Yangchen observed. _And young._

“Staying out of her way. Slip up around her and the whole charade will be torn down in hours.”

  
“I’m worried about the Avatar, too,” the younger speaker replied. “After all, he’s seen all of this before, hasn’t he?”

“So have the Fire Lord and Lady. I’m not concerned.”

“But…won’t he have picked up a few of his wife’s spy tricks?”

Yangchen would’ve laughed if her heart hadn’t been hammering in her chest. _You’d be surprised how much he’s resisted learning not to trust people._

“Quite frankly, San, I simply wouldn’t worry about it. Believe me, we have this under control.”

_Wait…San. Where have I heard that name?_ Yangchen’s heartrate spiked again at the unfamiliar familiarity of that name – she _knew_ she’d heard it and she knew it wasn’t the name of an ally, but she couldn’t quite place how she knew that. _San, San, San…_ she ran the name through her head as the two fell silent, trying desperately to get the pieces to click into place-

_Wait. The other Earth Prince._

“It can’t be,” Yangchen murmured, still so quiet that neither would hear her, and before she could even stop to think she was running, kicking off her shoes to let her footsteps fall quietly and abandoning them along with the fresh plate of moon peach buns on the end table.

Truthfully, she didn’t know much of anything. She’d overheard a snippet of conversation out of context and didn’t know where exactly it fit, but she knew that if she took her knowledge to the right person, someone probably could. All she knew, after all, was that the Crown Prince of the Earth Kingdom and someone – how she wished she’d been able to tell _which_ someone! – were doing something they felt the need to conceal, and that in and of itself was reason enough to pocket the knowledge.

She’d been upset enough at the idea of Kya – never her closest friend, but one whom she greatly admired nonetheless – being sold off as if she were no more than a mango at the market. But knowing that someone was _behind_ it (and she had to assume that they’d been discussing the marriage when they hinted at their conspiracy) made her blood boil.

So she barged into her mother’s office, and her father called out a greeting that died halfway through as she rushed past him, but she wasn’t concerned.

“There’s something sketchy about the Earth Kingdom delegation,” she panted, resting her palms against her mother’s desk and hanging her head so as to catch her breath.

Hina crossed her arms. “That isn’t news, Yangchen.”

“It’s not?”

“No, but I have to ask why you thought to bring it to my attention.”

“I overheard something,” she started, sliding into an armchair and beginning to explain.

* * *

“Hideo, I promise I’m not going to disappear if you let go of me.”

“I know you won’t.” Hideo nestled his shoulder under Izumi’s arm, burying his face in the collar of her robe and making absolutely no move to release his fiancée. (She was far from complaining.) “But…”   
  


“I don’t mind.” She leaned back against her free elbow, letting the other one rest around Hideo’s shoulders. “But I want you to know that I’m not going anywhere.”

“But it was so close,” Hideo said softly.

“To losing me?” Izumi shook her head. “No, it wasn’t.”

“But-“

“Hideo, you want to know what I told my family when we got word about the marriage negotiations?”

“Hm?” Hideo rested his head on her shoulder and lifted his eyes to watch her.

  
“I told them that I swore by all the spirits that I wasn’t going to give you up.”

“You can’t do that, Izumi,” Hideo sighed. “I love you and believe me, it means the world, but you have a country to take care of, and…” he paused to – catch his breath, regain his composure, _something._ “And you can’t choose me over them.”

“You’re going to be my husband, Hideo. I _have_ to have that kind of loyalty to you.”

“But you’re going to be Fire Lord, Izumi,” Hideo countered. “As much as I want to tell you not to let me go, your decisions are never going to be your own again once you inherit the throne. You’re not just going to be able to think of your family, or your friends, or your children, if you – I mean, if _we_ have them…” he paused, a smile playing at his lips in spite of the seriousness of the moment. “Or your husband. _Agni,_ I love saying that. Anyways. You have to think of your people first. And if that Matori situation was going to escalate into war if you didn’t agree to marry Hyun, well…you’d have had to do it.”

“Well, then, you should thank my sister for making sure I didn’t have to.”

“Believe me, I have.”

“I know all of that, Hideo,” Izumi continued, absentmindedly lobbing a chunk of bread into the pond and barely smiling as four turtleducks converged on it at once, squawking indignantly at the challenge to their access to the bread. “But the fact is that I _have_ a choice here. Kya made sure of that. And I get to choose you.”

“And you did choose me,” Hideo said, shifting so his arm wrapped around her shoulders the way hers did his. He breathed in the smoky scent of her crimson mantle.

“I did.” Now it was Izumi’s turn to shift, moving to the side so she could get a better look at him. She took his hands, though the affectionate gesture was rather unusual for her; she’d been feeling that need, lately, the need to be sure he knew she’d choose him every time. “And I think it was the right decision.”

“I think it was, too.” He smiled hesitantly as he replied, and Izumi couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss the dimple that appeared as he smiled at her.

Part of her wondered if she was selfish for this, but when Hideo moved in closer to brush his lips to hers, Izumi couldn’t find it within herself to care.

* * *

“Kya, wait up!”

Kya turned at the sound of her name. “Hyun?”

“I’m so glad I found you,” he panted as he finally caught up to her, resting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. _Has he really been running all this way?_ Kya wondered, trying rather valiantly not to blush. “I wanted…I needed…”

  
“Hyun, are you sure you’re all right?”

“Totally fine!” he wheezed. “Completely!”

“You seem pretty winded for someone who trains as much as you obviously do.”

  
“H-how was that obvious to you?” Hyun turned his face up to look back at her.

“Oh, uh…reasons,” she stammered, figuring he’d drop it before she had to reveal that the true answer was somewhere in the realm of ‘your biceps’. “Anyway. What did you need?”

“I know we didn’t get off on the right foot yesterday, so.” He finally stood up, straightening his jacket. “I tried to talk to my mother about calling off the wedding.”

“You _what?”_

“Look, Kya, I know you don’t like me,” Hyun said, sounding almost remorseful. “And I don’t think we get along too well. I don’t want you to be miserable, so I tried to break the engagement.”

“You…didn’t think to ask me about this?” Kya asked, flushing in earnest now. No, she didn’t want to marry Hyun, but…

Well. It would be a shame to see him go so quickly.

  
“Wait…ugh, I should’ve done that.” Hyun ran a hand through his impeccable coif, somehow managing not to set a single strand out of place. _He’s had practice,_ Kya realized. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about that…”

“I don’t blame you, Hyun. Really, it’s fine.” She reached out to touch his arm, only to pull back an instant later as if burned by a hot stove. “I, um.” She shoved the offending hand behind her back. “And it means a lot to me that you cared enough to try to call it off. But we aren’t going to be able to get out of this.”

“That’s what my mother said.”

“I’m not going to lie, your mother makes me want to throw things,” Kya said without an ounce of remorse, “but she isn’t entirely wrong here. If the Earth Kingdom is going to demand a marriage before they’ll agree to get the border situation under control, we’re just going to have to buckle down and deal with it.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with that, Kya?”

Kya nodded, straightening her spine. “I am, Hyun. Really. It’s not as if anyone expects us to be in love or anything, right? They won’t even be expecting us to have children, I don’t…think.” _Great, Kya,_ she thought, beet-red warmth blooming in her cheeks. _Way to make things weird._ “Um…all we have to do is not kill each other!” she said a little too brightly. “We can do that, right?”

  
“I know _I_ can, but I seriously question whether you’ll be willing to lay off killing _me.”_

“I think I’m up to the challenge, Hyun.”

_Thank you,_ she wanted to add again, but the moment didn’t feel right. So she let him go with merely a deferential nod in her direction.


	6. Mounting Tensions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yangchen debriefs the Steambabies (plus Yuna) on the Earth Kingdom situation; Aang and Hina discuss the best ways to handle the Matori Crisis; Kya and Hyun attempt to have a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OLDER HAANG OLDER HAANG OLDER HAANG-
> 
> Yeah. I like this one.

**Two Months Later**

“Okay, let me see if I have this right.” Sakari shifted to lean her elbow against her crossed, bouncing knee. “You overheard the other Earth Prince and…some other guy…talking about… _something,_ and you think they’re doing something sketchy?”

“Sakari, no one says ‘they suspect nothing’ that many times if they’re not plotting something.” Yangchen knew that that incessant need to question every order and every piece of information she was given was simply Sakari’s way - they’d spent too much time together over the years for that tendency to have gone unnoticed - but, just this once, she wished her friend would play along. 

“Oh, really. Never would’ve guessed,” Sakari said drily, meeting Yangchen’s eyes with a challenge in her own. “And you have _no_ idea what’s actually happening?”

“My mother already suspected that they were going to try something. Ask her.” Yangchen knew this wasn’t the time to pick a fight, but she never had liked to back down from a challenge - though whether because Saki was an insufferable winner or because she felt a curious but pleasant dizziness when she did, she wasn’t sure. “I trust you’ll take her at her word if you won’t take mine.”

“Saki, Yangchen, please,” Ryuji sighed, raising his hand to stop them. Yuna, seated beside him on the parlor’s loveseat, fixed her sister with a warning look. “Yangchen, it seems like you have a pretty convincing case for the Earth Kingdom delegation being up to something. Do you have any idea what that thing _is?”_

“…no,” Yangchen admitted, “but I talked to my mother about this, as I already mentioned, and she thinks that the marriage negotiations aren’t…entirely what they seem to be.”

“Then why haven’t our parents _done_ anything about it?” Sakari asked, narrowing her eyes. Saki’s eyes always seemed to express what her words could not, and Yangchen knew how to read their movements now; this was a question to her - _what aren’t you telling me, Chennie?_ But instead she said, “if we think something weird is going on with Hyun-“

“Not with Hyun,” Yangchen cut in. “Mom’s actually said on several occasions that she thinks Hyun is probably too dumb and sincere to be plotting anything.”

Ryuji winced. “Harsh.”

“Is it not true?”

“Well, yes, but still.”

“So, anyway.” Yangchen cleared her throat. Sakari’s eyes still held that flicker of a question, and she averted her own so as not to have to meet them. “There are a few reasons we’re not really doing anything. First, we have no idea what they’re actually planning in any concrete way, so we _can’t_ act against them. Second, we still can’t risk making the Earth Queen back out of the negotiations before we’re able to stabilize the Matori Province crisis. If we try to call off the wedding that _she_ insisted on, she might back out, and we can’t afford to let the situation escalate based on half-baked evidence of a crime when we’re not even sure of what it _is._ We – Ryuji, quit laughing, there is _nothing_ funny about this-“

“Sorry, sorry,” Ryuji said, trying to bite back his laughter. “You just sound like Hina.”

“You really do,” Yuna agreed with a smirk.   
  


Sakari looked somewhere between smug, flustered, and faint. She said nothing. 

“Well, _someone_ has to,” Yangchen muttered, nevertheless entirely pleased. “So, anyway. We don’t think Kya’s in any danger since Hyun probably isn’t involved-“

“How could he _not_ be?” Sakari protested, evidently not done questioning the plan or her friend’s explanation. _Again, Saki?,_ Yangchen thought, indignation rising alongside the utterly distracting realization that Sakari, even in the midst of a crisis, looked to her. “We’re seriously going to just…let her be married off by someone who could be a conspiracist just because?”

“People will die, Saki,” Sana said, finally breaking her own silence. She’d been content to let her brother, sister, and two sisters-in-law – Izumi and Gyatso had been busy and no one had wanted to risk letting Kya in on the information before she’d been formally briefed – do the talking, but she’d always been a tempering influence on her next-oldest sister, and Yangchen was grateful for that now. “We probably can’t get Kya out without that happening.”

“Oh, so we’re just going to throw our sister to the wolves?” Sakari snapped. “Ten-out-of-ten, way to keep the streak of terrible Fire Nation royal families alive!”

Now Yangchen watched her freely, something that was always easier when Saki’s eyes weren’t on her. Tendrils of her black hair had begun to slip from her hastily-tied ponytail, and her blue eyes raged like the sea in a storm. Her wiry frame seemed to vibrate with energy, anger demanding to be released before it set her afire. Sana was visibly frightened, but Yangchen couldn’t help but take a different view of the scene before her.   
  


Oh, how she hated that _beautiful_ was the only word she could ever truthfully use to describe a friend who should’ve been nothing more than a face in the crowd right now. 

“Sakari!” Sana’s eyes widened with hurt. “We’d never let Kya get hurt, you know that.”

“But you _are!”_ Sakari protested. “She’s being married off to someone whose family might be plotting against ours and no one is doing _anything.”_

“Sakari, for the last time, _Hyun is clearly not involved,”_ Yangchen cut in tiredly, though she wasnt sure whether it was her friend’s argumentativeness or the reeling in her head that wore her down more. 

“And we know this…how?”

“My mother is the single best judge of character that any of us will ever meet. Nothing gets past her, Saki, you _know_ that. If she tells us he can be trusted, he can be trusted, okay?” Yangchen rocked back on her heels – it was an anxious habit of hers – and crossed her arms. Saki met her eyes again, defiant as ever, and this time Yangchen couldn’t look away save to glance at the calculating look on her sister’s face as Yuna assessed the look passing between them.   
  


_Great._

Sakari couldn’t exactly deny that Hina’s snap judgments of the people around her were legendarily sound, or that Hina was hardly the Oyama she was most concerned with right now, but she still didn’t look pleased. “If you insist,” she huffed. “But how are we going to protect her from his family?”

  
“That part’s not just about her, Saki,” Yuna’s gentler voice cut in. _Thank you,_ Yangchen mouthed, and her sister nodded back at her, hiding a knowing smile. “Any of us could be the target of whatever they’re trying to do. Well…probably not Yangchen, but the rest of us…”

“Wait, including the baby?” Sana’s expressive golden eyes widened.

Yuna and Ryuji shared an uneasy look before she replied. “Probably not, since Ryuji and I aren’t really all that important in the grand scheme of the royal hierarchy,” Yuna replied, nevertheless setting her hand on her stomach protectively. “But we can’t rule anything out.”

“I get why, but I still can’t believe we’re just letting these people barge into our family,” Sakari spat. “I say we call off the wedding, stabilize the border war ourselves, and hire someone to off the Earth Queen-“

“Saki, sweetheart, that’s not going to solve anything,” Yuna said, earning herself one of Sakari’s signature glares.

“Don’t patronize me,” Sakari snapped. 

“Don’t snap at my wife, Sakari.”

“Don’t throw your own sister to the wolves for an easy peace deal, _Ryuji!”_

“Don’t argue when you don’t even know what you’re talking about!”

“Don’t-“

“Guys, _enough,”_ Yuna cut in. “I know we’re all under a lot of pressure here, but we can’t fix anything by arguing.”

“Really, this isn’t even ours to fix at all,” Yangchen added. “The negotiations are Zuko and Katara’s job and the investigation is Mom’s, and all we have to do is stay out of the way, keep a close eye on the Earth Queen’s delegation, and tell them if we see anything weird, okay?”

  
Yangchen had never felt like the mother of an unruly brood or one-half of a lover’s spat in her life, and she absolutely hated the feeling.

“I need to go talk to Mom and Dad,” Sakari huffed, getting up to leave but not before glaring at the group.

“You do that, Saki,” Ryuji sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“Did I make a mistake in even telling her about this?” Yangchen asked, watching the door latch behind Sakari.

“No, she deserves to know,” Sana replied. “But I don’t think that’s going to make this any easier.”

* * *

“Are you sure you shouldn’t be letting me take care of this, Hina? It’s _my_ job to intervene in cases like this.”

“Aang, this is Fire Nation business, not-“

“Avatar business?” Aang replied, crossing his arms. That was Hina’s phrase of choice, most of the time, when she wanted to handle something herself, and he never appreciated it. “Hina, this isn’t just about the Fire Nation, or about a marriage, or negotiations. It’s the balance of power on the line here – that _is_ Avatar business.”

“But what are you going to do, talk the Earth Queen down?” Hina shrugged. “Zuko and Katara have done everything in their power to work around the marriage contract _and_ to get a final settlement and Lian is having none of it. Not even your diplomatic skill is going to get through to her now.”

“You think I have diplomatic skill?”

Hina rolled her eyes fondly at her husband’s palpable excitement, pawing through a stack of documents. “Of course you do. What, do I not sing your praises often enough for your liking?” She crossed one knee over the other and raised her arm so she could rest her chin on her hand, blinking up at him innocently.

Aang simply stared at her for a moment – her coquettish pose, the glint in her seafoam eyes, the way a few tendrils of hair had escaped her bun – before he finally blinked to clear his vision of the vision that was his wife and replied, “well, I _do_ like that song, you know.”

“Oh, Aang…always so easy,” Hina laughed, going back to the papers she was scanning. “Anyway. I just don’t think there’s anything I could reasonably _do_ about this.”

“Well, I could go to the Matori Province, for one. The Earth Queen won’t send formal aid, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t well within the rights of the Avatar to go in and try to mediate the conflict.”

“Actually…” Hina bit her lip guiltily, shuffling papers. Aang narrowed his eyes – she always did that when she was nervous and trying to distract herself – but didn’t say anything. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“About going to the Matori Province? I could-“

“No, not about _you_ going.”

“Hina, you can’t mean…”

“Oh, no, I’m not going.” Hina sighed, tucking a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “Thought about it, but it’d be a disaster, and I’m needed here too much to risk my life there.”

“I never thought I’d hear you say you were staying out of the field out of caution, but that makes me happy.” He reached across Hina’s desk to squeeze her hand. “And we _do_ need you here, especially now that the Earth Queen’s…plotting something.”

“I wish I could go, but Zuko and Katara were unambiguous on that point. Both sides would expect something from me that, as a neutral party, I couldn’t give them, and soon I’d just be a target.” Hina raised one shoulder in a halfhearted half-shrug. “But it _would_ be good to send someone in, and…”

  
“And?”

“Yangchen asked me if she could go.”

“She did?”

Hina nodded. “Last night. After she overheard that conversation between San and…whoever, she told me she wanted to do something. Asked if she could go to the Matori Province and…I don’t know, case the situation? Do aid work? It was hard to tell what her plan was.”

“We can’t send her.”

“I’d normally be inclined to agree, but…” Hina trailed off, catching Aang’s eyes so she could be sure he was listening. “With everything so up in the air, it couldn’t hurt to have a source in the Province we knew we could trust.”

“That’s what your intelligence agents are for,” Aang protested. “This is our _daughter,_ Hina. We can’t just send her into a war zone because she was feeling restless.”

“It isn’t just restlessness, Aang.” Hina laid her palm against his forearm and it drifted down, after a moment, to take his hand. “She really feels for these people, it’s obvious. She knows what it’s like to be them, and she wants to help. Can we really deny her that?”

“That’s why you want her to do this, don’t you,” Aang sighed. “You see yourself in her.”

“Of course I do, Aang. She’s restless because she’s passionate and she sees people just like her suffering while the whole world sits back and does nothing. And…” she glanced at the ceiling as if to relieve nerves. “Was I really any different when I was her age?”

She hadn’t, Aang realized. They’d met when Hina was about the age that Yangchen was now, and back then she’d been hot-blooded and willing to do anything for a cause, for people who’d suffered as she had. She hadn’t thought a thing of throwing herself into danger and he’d often been frustrated at her lack of regard for her safety, but that passion had drawn him to her, too. If his was the element of change, Hina, who had no element, nevertheless commanded a kind of single-minded, stop-at-nothing determination as impressive as any bending he’d ever seen.

  
And though their oldest and youngest took after him, their middle daughter had inherited that drive in spades.

“No, but I’m still not sure about this,” Aang admitted. “Is it even safe?”

  
“Of course it isn’t, Aang.”

“Can we really let her go, then?”

“She’s an adult,” Hina said, rather uncharacteristically helpless. “We can’t hold her hands for the rest of her life.”

“Yes, but there’s a world of difference between holding her hands and sending her into a war zone.”

“We can think about it, all right?”

“Fine,” Aang conceded. “I don’t like it, but we can give it some thought.”

“I’m proud of her, Aang.” Hina’s expression softened. “She’s so much like my mother.”

“No, she’s so much like _her_ mother.” Aang couldn’t help but smile. “Passionate, driven, intelligent, perceptive-“

“You forgot ‘beautiful,’ darling.” Hina’s eyes were cast down to her desk in embarrassment but, nevertheless, she glowed with the unexpected praise.

“You know very well you’d rather be called smart than beautiful, short stuff.”

“That I would, little Avatar, that I would.” She smirked. “But can’t I like both?”

* * *

“So…you’re a waterbender.”

It took everything Kya had not to roll her eyes. “Yes, Hyun, I am, in fact, a waterbender, thank you for noticing.”

“Is it…uh…fun?”

“Waterbending?” Kya raised her eyebrows. “Fun’s not the word I’d use. Not like it’s a hobby or something.”

“Earthbending can be fun sometimes.” Hyun met her eyes with a lopsided smile that could’ve been dazzling in a face as nice as his but was instead…endearingly derpy, she supposed. “Great for messing with my brother.”

“Mm. That is, um. A nice application of bending, methinks.” Kya coughed into her hand, hoping the chilly formality would…

What? Drive him off? Make him laugh? She wasn’t even sure, but she hoped it was the latter, seeing as he did.

“When we had to go to state dinners as kids, I’d just raise the ground under his chair an inch every few minutes until he was so high up his legs barely fit under the table.” Hyun chuckled at the memory. “We were never allowed to make scenes at those, so he had to deal with it. It was…kind of the best.”

“That is…incredibly stupid.” Kya shook her head. “I _love_ it.”

“Bet you anything you used to throw water at your siblings.”

“How’d you know?” Kya’s heart turned oddly in her chest at the way he’d figured that out so easily.

Hyun shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just what I would’ve done if I could waterbend.”

Kya didn’t know what to say, so they were silent for a moment, awkwardly attuned to the other’s every move. Hyun was, frankly, so baffled by Kya that he didn’t even know what to do, and Kya wanted to be annoyed by his every move – often _was_ – and was frustrated that she couldn’t.

“So, I met your sister,” Hyun finally said just to break the silence.

“You’re going to have to be a little more specific, Hyun.”

“The tiny, angry one.”

“Sakari?” Kya grimaced. “Whatever she said, it isn’t true.”

“She said you were, and I quote, ‘perishing of love for me.’” He shook his head, bemused. “I told her I didn’t think you’d say that but she said you did.”

“Nope, never did. She’s the worst.”

“You shouldn’t say that about your siblings, Kya,” Hyun told her with an air of great importance that made her want to unleash the contents of her waterskin in his face. “You’re lucky that you-“

“Don’t tell me what I’m lucky to have, Hyun,” Kya snapped, almost relieved to be able to edge back into the familiar territory of hostility. “You don’t know _anything_ about my family.”

  
“I don’t have to, Kya.” Hyun looked hurt and Kya nearly felt guilty but she didn’t, not quite. “I can tell they care about you. You should be grateful for that.”

“You know absolutely _nothing_ about my life!”

“Well, you don’t know anything about _mine,_ either!”

“Try being compared to your perfect older sister every single day of your _life_ and tell me how that feels, pretty boy.”

“ _Pretty boy?”_

“I have never in my life met someone who’s as concerned about your clothes as you are, Hyun, so yeah. Pretty boy.”

“Well, you spend more time _complaining_ than anyone needs to!”

“Oh? Is that all you’ve got, pretty boy?”

“And you’re so _rude!”_

“No one in this palace would’ve given me a second of attention as a kid if I _wasn’t_ a brat, Hyun. Why do you think I whine all the time?”

“Oh? You think you’re the only one who knows what it feels like to get compared to your older sibling all the time?” Hyun crossed his arms, completely ignoring her previous statement. “I had to sit there watching stupid San get fawned over my whole life while I was just sitting there, the useless idiot backup plan!”

“And I was a _waterbender_ in the _Fire Nation!”_

“I…” Hyun froze. “I’m…I’m sorry, Kya, I didn’t-“

“Wait, no, don’t.” Hyun got up to leave and Kya wanted to stand, grab his wrist and tell him to stay, but something stilled her.

“I’m sorry, Princess. I didn’t mean to lose my temper.”

He was gone before she could get a word in edgewise and, without thinking, she pressed her hand to the cushion he’d sat upon a moment before.

“Stupid,” she muttered under her breath. “This happens every time, doesn’t it?”


	7. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kya angsts; Hina, Aang, and Yangchen come to a decision; Izumi opens up to Hyun; Yuna's not having a great night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a *mess,* BUT the next five or so chapters are the ones I'm most excited to write, so I can't wait to get through it!

Kya couldn’t even watch as the head seamstress jabbed a final pin into the heavy white brocade of the gown. It was stiff and ornate and hung off her body as heavily as it would if it were soaked, and it was all she could do to keep her eyes open, smile disingenuously, open her mouth to tell the seamstresses where to pin and tuck and stitch. But she did.

So many had accused her of the very opposite of this, of being incapable of doing her duty. She’d show them. She’d show them no matter how many words she had to bite back, no matter how many times the pins in her gown pricked her skin, no matter how many hours she spent with her head bowed, trying not to look at her reflection in the full-length mirror in front of her. Kya would show them: show them she was as capable of goodness as anyone, show them how strong she could be.

Maybe, that way, her loss could be gain. Maybe, in being trapped, she could be freed.

“You look absolutely stunning, Princess,” the head of the seamstresses announced after she’d stabbed one last pin into the bodice of Kya’s gown. “You’re the spitting image of your mother.”

“Thank you,” Kya said hollowly, squeezing her eyes shut. She’d expected the comparison; she’d always looked like her mother, and this dress had been hers once, too. The cream-and-blue gown had been one of Katara’s many attempts at easing her daughter’s dread of her impending nupitals; she’d known Kya had thought of herself as more Water Tribe than Fire Nation her entire life, and the heirloom dress had been a concession to that. But, though Kya would’ve died before she married in red, she couldn’t bear to look at the beautiful garment she’d spent weeks in fittings for.

Her mother, when she’d worn this, had been twenty-one and madly, deliriously in love. Kya, when she wore it, would be twenty-five and bowing her head to duty. Her mother had loved this gown; to Kya, it was no more than a symbol of her own helplessness. She was a waterbender nearly as skilled as her mother, a strategist nearly as formidable as her sister, but she’d spend her days as a symbol, on the arm of a man she couldn’t speak to for five minutes without feeling the inexplicable urge to lash out at him.

“Do you want a Water Tribe ceremony, too?” Katara had asked at the first of these fittings, and Kya had shaken her head resolutely, because it all seemed so futile – this marriage would be as impersonal as it could reasonably be, and what was the point of wisdom when they’d barely have cause to so much as speak to each other?

  
Her mother’s face had still clouded over with confusion, though. “But you loved Southern Water Tribe weddings growing up,” she said, almost sounding hurt.

She had. Kya had never been one to dream about her wedding, but she’d loved the ceremonies, and the cozy camaraderie that came with them. But…

“Yes, but I don’t love _him.”_

“Oh.” Katara hadn’t had a rebuttal for that. “I see. I…that makes sense.”

“Thanks for the offer, though,” she’d said perfunctorily, and that had been that.

Now, at her final fitting, Kya wanted to cry or scream or sit down or _something_ to let out the frustration threatening to bubble over. Evidently, that was obvious, because the head seamstress’ face scrunched in concern. “Are you all right?” she adjusted a pin. “Too tight?”

  
“No, thank you, I’m fine,” Kya lied. Nodding, the seamstress turned back to the seam she’d been stitching.

Vaguely, Kya wondered what it would be like, marrying Hyun. She wondered if she’d ever want to talk to him, if she’d get lonely enough to put aside the way he drove her crazy. Her mind drifted to the ceremony and she wondered, when they had to kiss, if he’d be any good at it – if she’d like it. She fully intended to keep to her own bedchamber, but she wondered if the palace would whisper as it always had when it came to her. _They hate each other,_ the servants would say behind closed doors, because they had _never_ been charitable to the second-born of their sovereigns. She was too hotheaded and ill-behaved and they’d grown so comfortable under the Fire Lord and Lady’s aversion to censorship that they had no qualms about speaking their minds. _See that? The useless Princess can’t even keep the Earth Prince’s bed warm._

Kya’s cheeks burned and she couldn’t tell whether shame or scandalization had produced that effect. She’d always held that idea in the back of her mind somewhere; she’d be no good as a wife regardless of her affection for her husband. She was not attentive, nor particularly nurturing; she’d inherited her mother’s fire and temper with none of her motherly softness. She was passionate but had never been a romantic; she was so thoroughly convinced of her own uselessness that she couldn’t imagine having anything to contribute. And that her husband would be a man she barely knew helped none of that.

Privately, Kya almost pitied her fiancé. Hyun was irritating as a sand-fly, but he was sweet and he seemed as if he cared for her more than he had any need to after such a brief period of acquaintance; none of that would be returned. He’d find his wife cold and unreceptive, aloof and hot-tempered, utterly determined not to give him the comfort of her touch nor – Agni forbid – a child to call his own. He’d find her almost outrageously vindictive for no reason of his own making, taking out a lifetime of frustrations upon the man who’d taken on the face of all of those heartaches in her final desperate bid to rid herself of them.

And he would never, not _once_ in a lifetime together, would he see past the shell and catch a glimpse of a woman desperate for his kindness, his encouraging words, the loving touch she’d so often gone without.

That she’d so often been left without by people who should’ve known better.

_My parents are good parents. My people are good people. I am the one who’s wrong._ She’d repeated the mantra to herself over and _over_ and she knew, realistically, that it wasn’t her parents’ fault that they’d been so busy. They loved their children; her father had instructed Izumi in politics and in Firebending as gently and as well as he could, and her mother had taught herself and Ryuji to fight and to heal with patience and understanding; they’d been free with affection, all too eager to fold their children into their arms the way their own parents had not.

But Kya had never felt like the one those embraces were meant for, and secretly, she’d always wished she had someone whose arms to take refuge in.

But she wouldn’t, not after this.

Kya raised her eyes to the mirror once more.

* * *

“You’re going to let me do it?” Yangchen’s eyes lit up. “You’ll let me go?”

“With one caveat.” Hina crossed her arms. “Which I am none too happy about, but-“

“I’m coming with you,” Aang finished.

“Wait, didn’t Mom decide that you weren’t allowed to do that?” Yangchen crossed her arms.

“It’s my _job,_ Yangchen. She can’t exactly tell me that I’m not allowed to be the Avatar-“

“I still don’t think you need to be going, Aang.”

“Hina, this is _not_ the time for you to be trying to protect me!”

“Mom. Dad. Please.” Yangchen raised her hand to stop them, already exhausted. “Can we please get back to the part where I’m going to the Matori Province?”

“Right, sorry.” Aang, at least, had the dignity to look sheepish. “As I said, you can go, but you’ll be accompanying me.”

“But not directly,” Hina cut in, “because people are going to lose their minds if they know you’re the Avatar’s daughter and they’ll probably just turn you into a target and-“

“Mom, I know that. Use an alias, don’t get seen together. That’s…pretty basic.”

“It also means you’re not going to be able to work together, though,” Hina pointed out. “Your father will be working with local factions to try to mediate the conflict, but you’ll have to do whatever investigative or aid work you want to get done on your own.” She made sure her daughter was looking her in the eyes before continuing. “And you are _not_ allowed to get yourself killed to do it.”

“Of course.” Yangchen hadn’t exactly had “get self killed” on the agenda when she’d started mapping out a possible trip. “So, when do we leave?”

“As soon as we reasonably can,” Aang told her. “We need to get there before the situation becomes even more volatile, but…your sister…”

“He doesn’t want to leave with Yuna so close to her due date,” Hina explained.

_Learned from the past, I guess._ Yangchen had heard the story of her own birth – the one her father had missed, which neither she nor her mother had ever let him live down – enough times to know why he was reluctant to leave right now. “So we just…wait until she has the baby and then leave?”

“That would be ideal,” Aang said.

“So we’re just going to be…packed and ready to head out as soon as we can?”

“If possible-“

“It is,” Yangchen reassured them. “I’ll have a bag packed by tonight.”

* * *

“Hey! Enjoying the, uh…the…turtle-ducks?”

  
Izumi looked up from the surface of the pond to find Hyun peering down at her with a genuine, if awkward, smile on his face. “Well, they’re mad that I didn’t bring bread today, but sure.”

Hyun took a seat beside her, not particularly concerned about the fact that she hadn’t asked him to stay. It appeared that he hadn’t exactly noticed that she’d been lost in thought. “Are you, um…are you okay?”

“Me?” Izumi asked, quirking an eyebrow. Apparently he _had_ noticed. “Yeah, just thinking.”

“Me too,” Hyun admitted. “Your dad told me that this was a good place to go to think, so I guess we’re here for the same reason.”

  
“You’ve talked to my father?” Izumi was too amused by the idea to be annoyed. “What about?”

“Your sister, mostly,” Hyun offered easily, as if it _weren’t_ at all bizarre that he’d been asking every member of his fiancée’s family about her. “Why she hates me so much.”

“I don’t think she hates you, Hyun.”

“But she’s always yelling at me…”

“She does that to everyone.” Izumi sighed. “Look, you can’t tell her I said this, but I think Kya’s a little confused about why she’s doing this right now. She’s…scared, I guess. And she has a lot of old hurts that probably aren’t making it any easier for her to do that. So I wouldn’t take it personally if she’s kind of cold – I know for a fact that the worst thing she’s ever called you is ‘annoying’.”

“But that’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”

“Please. If she really wanted to insult you, she’d have called you a rampaging badgermole with all of the common sense of a lychee nut.”

“Is that…is that something she’s actually called someone before?”

  
“Quite a few people, actually. Kya’s insults are legendary.”

“Hm. I’ll have to remember that.” Hyun paused, smiling as a turtleduckling began to peck at the toe of his shoe. “So, what did _you_ come out here to think about?”

  
“It’s personal,” Izumi said drily.

“Oh, okay,” Hyun replied, only to follow it shortly with, “something about your fiancé?”

“Um. Again, it’s personal.”

“Or that weird little dude who follows you everywhere?”

_That,_ at least, provoked her attention. “It’s _that_ obvious?” she groaned, burying her face in her hands. “ _Gaaah._ I hate that I can’t do _anything_ about it.”

“It’s not your fault, Princess,” Hyun said. “I mean, if he likes you-“

  
“I never told you he liked me.”

“Izumi, I’m a guy. I know what it looks like when a guy likes a girl – sorry, _woman –_ and, um. Whatever you’ve got going on with the little dude? That’s it.”

“He’s taller than me,” Izumi said peevishly, but she didn’t rebuff him. “And there’s nothing _going on_ between Gyatso and I. He has this really creepy crush on me and I’ve tried ignoring it because we’re _friends,_ and we’ve been friends since we were little kids, but it’s getting ridiculous.”

“Aren’t you getting married in a few months?”

“ _Exactly.”_

“Man. He really needs to take a hint,” Hyun said, as if it were just that simple.

_Maybe it is,_ Izumi thought.

“He really does,” Izumi agreed. “I’m…actually starting to worry about him. Like, what’s he going to do about this when Hideo and I get married?”

“Do you like him?”

“As a friend? Of course. He’s my parents’ best friends’ kid – Aang and Hina, you’ve probably met them-“

“Wait, the _Avatar’s_ kid is in love with you?”

“Unfortunately,” Izumi sighed. “Anyway. We grew up together, and I taught him firebending – well, tried to – and he’s…really misunderstood, I think, and I care about him, obviously. But romantically…” she shuddered. “Agni, never. He’s _nineteen.”_

“And you’re twenty-six? Ouch.”

“Yup.” Izumi was surprised at how easy it was to open up to Hyun – he was a little dim, and rather nosy, but he was also unflaggingly polite, and there was something entirely trustworthy about him. “He’s, like…really, _really_ religious, and I get the idea that I’m kind of sending him into a moral crisis, so that’s another fun benefit of having your much younger friend fall for you.”

“Have you actually talked to him about this? I feel like he probably doesn’t even realize half of this stuff.” Hyun shrugged. “I know I wouldn’t have when I was his age.”

“Oh? Is there a story there?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“I, unlike you, will take you at your word on that.” Izumi shifted, uncrossing her legs – left over right – and then crossing them again, this time right over left. If Hyun noticed the well-meaning jibe, he didn’t say anything. “Anyway. I don't even know if talking to him would help at this point, but..." 

"Give it a try. Can't make it worse, can it?" 

"Oh, I'm not sure about that." Izumi grimaced. "But enough about me. What I _really_ want to know is how things are with you and Kya.”

“Awful,” Hyun said dejectedly. “She just yells at me. And I don’t even know _why,_ but I end up yelling back, and then I feel terrible because I shouldn’t be so-“

“Oh, no, trust me, she likes that.” Izumi smirked. “Maybe not the actual fights, but arguing for no reason? She gets the _biggest_ rush from pointlessly fighting people.”

“Wait, so…”

“She probably finds it unbearably hot.”

“I…would _not_ have realized that.” He narrowed his eyes. “But…I know I don’t know her as well as you do, but are you sure?”

“Pretty much, why?”

“I don’t know, she just seemed really hurt yesterday,” Hyun said. “We were arguing about…well, siblings, her family-“

“Touchy subject. I wouldn’t go there.”

“Really? But you all seem so close.”

Izumi’s shoulders drooped. “Sort of,” she admitted. “But…the more I think about the last few weeks, the more I realized that we all failed Kya.”

“But-“

  
“Every single one of us.”

* * *

Yuna never thought she’d miss tossing and turning as she tried to fall asleep, not when she hated restless nights, but now she found that she did and she _hated_ that.

Tossing and turning would be endlessly preferable, she decided, to being hot, cramped, unable to move around with ease, and aching. Yuna had tried everything in her rather limited power to make herself comfortable, but tonight, it was simply not working.

Running short on options, she thought about waking Ryuji – to ice her aching back, to help her move into a more comfortable position, _something –_ but thought better of it, watching him sleep soundly with as much envy as affection. Hours ago, he’d fallen asleep on his side, facing her, but he’d shifted during the night and now he lay on his stomach, one hand reaching for her (she took it, though it did nothing) and the other buried under his pillow. She couldn’t begrudge him his sleep, so she did not wake him; instead, she turned with great effort to her other side and tried to settle in, only to sigh in resignation at a persistent pinching sensation in her abdomen.

Yuna doubted she’d sleep tonight.

_Can you please let me sleep?,_ Yuna thought as she rubbed her stomach, wondering aimlessly if her efforts at maternal telepathy would do the trick. But it didn’t: the pinching sensation wouldn’t go away and it only grew stronger until, what had to be an hour later, Yuna realized with a pang that they weren’t going away.

“Ryuji?” she rasped, her voice groggy even though she hadn’t slept.

He didn’t stir, so she tried again. “Ryuji?”

Nothing.

“Fine, then,” she huffed, turning to grab his shoulder and shake him awake. Ryuji took a moment to react but when he finally cleared his vision and noticed the look of sheer panic on his wife’s face – and the way she was clutching her abdomen – he didn’t need much of an explanation.

“Are you…” he asked, trailing off as he rubbed at his eyes.

She nodded tightly. “Go get the midwife.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ratio of time spent reading about how one knows one is in labor vs. time spent writing the last section was...abysmal. Author has clearly never been pregnant, so please bear with me on that.


	8. Additions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our Steam-grandbaby makes its appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one big mess, but BABY. IT'S BABY TIME.

“Can’t this wait until morning?” Zuko muttered, yawning as he dragged himself from the warmth of the sheets to get the door.

Katara stirred at the movement beside her and the sound of incessant knocking. “Zuko? What’s going on?”

“Don’t know,” he sighed, opening the door. “Is something wrong?”

  
“Not exactly, Your Majesty.” The servant who’d come to the door looked no more enthusiastic at having been roused than Zuko did. “Lady Oyama appears to be in labor.”

“ _Appears to be?”_

The servant shrugged. “Unsure, sir. All I know is that she’s, apparently, asking for Lady Katara.”

“Hm?” Katara called sleepily from inside the room, still too sleepy to have comprehended what the man was saying. Evidently she’d heard her own name, though. “What is it?”

“Thank you, she’ll be right along,” Zuko told the courier, who nodded and left, before turning to Katara. “It’s Yuna. She went into labor, apparently, and now she’s asking for you.”

“ _Apparently?”_

“I don’t know, it all seems very unclear,” he sighed. “Anyways. I thought you’d want to go to her.”

“Of course.” Katara barely paused to pull back her hair and shrug on a clean robe – she didn’t think it entirely advisable to deliver a baby wearing nothing but her husband’s training tunic – before she leaned to kiss Zuko’s cheek, altogether awake now, and turned to go. “See you on the other side, love.”

* * *

“Please, I am _begging_ you, stop pacing.”

“Zuko, that is my _daughter_ in there.” Aang fixed his friend with the sorest look he could muster in his early-morning exhaustion. “I think I can be forgiven for being…somewhat restive.”

“Somewhat? Aang, you’ve been pacing for an hour.” Zuko slouched further into the armchair he’d not moved from since they’d arrived here, in an obscure part of the palace that Hina had spirited both away to the moment she found them lurking outside the birthing chamber. She’d drowned her husband’s protests with the insistence that he’d only become distressed if he were nearby to hear his daughter’s cries, and though Zuko ordinarily would’ve fought the prohibition on their presence, he had to concede that his Spymistress’ intuition was a good one. Aang had been so frantic during his own children’s births that the family liked to joke that he’d nearly gone into the Avatar State, and Zuko suspected that his grandson’s birth would be no different.

And, two hours later, they were still where she’d left them.

“I just don’t know what else to do,” Aang admitted, _finally_ taking a seat. “If I think too much, I’ll…I’ll go crazy, Zuko. So many things could go wrong, and that’s my _daughter,_ and…well, what would you do if that were Izumi?”

Zuko considered the question and felt almost short of breath.

“Probably exactly what you’re doing,” he admitted.

“I can’t help but remember the last time we did this,” Aang said with an anemic chuckle. “Never gets easier, does it?”

It had been seventeen years since Sana, the last of either family’s children, had been born, but the feeling was fresh. “It doesn’t,” Zuko agreed. “But she’ll be okay. Really, Aang, she will.”

“You don’t know that, Zuko…”

“Yes, I do.” Zuko patted Aang’s shoulder reassuringly. “For one, she’s got good doctors and the best healer I’ve ever met and two more for backup, one of whom is her husband.”

“Well, that _is…_ somewhat…reassuring.” Aang didn’t look convinced, but it was a start.

“And besides, she’s an Oyama.” That, at least, got Aang to crack a smile. “And you know better than anyone that nothing gets the best of an Oyama woman.”

"Well, yes." Aang couldn’t help but think of Hina’s steely resilience, Yuna’s determination, Yangchen’s stubbornness, both of his daughters’ mastery of their elements, and it was hard to deny that they were cut from special cloth. “But she’s my _daughter,_ Zuko.”

“I get that, Aang. And for what it’s worth…” Zuko leaned back into the armchair with a heavy sigh. “It’s my grandkid, too.”

A long moment passed in which they simply stared at each other in sheer, unadulterated panic.

“That’s it,” Aang muttered, getting up to leave. “I’m going to go distract myself.”

* * *

If Aang couldn’t pace unimpeded in the parlor where he’d been locked up with Zuko, he’d find somewhere else to do it.

Dimly, he was aware that there were probably better ways to deal with this. He could meditate, talk to someone, go find Yangchen and Gyatso and beg them never to procreate-

Okay, perhaps not _that,_ but virtually anything would’ve been more constructive than pacing the floors. Aang knew this, but he couldn’t help it. He remembered his children’s births all too well and he couldn’t exactly rest easy, knowing his daughter was going through the same now. Hina’s anguished cries were burned into his memory and the thought of Yuna, his oldest, his sweet little Airbender, the kindest and gentlest child he could’ve ever hoped to have, clutching her husband’s hand for dear life, face contorted in pain-

_Snap out of it,_ he willed himself, unwilling to entertain his worries any longer. It wouldn’t do a thing for his nerves so he shoved his hands into the folds of his robes and paced, ignoring the prying eyes of the guards and servants moving about the palace. He thought about anything at all – about the Earth Kingdom delegation’s suspicious behavior, about his upcoming trip to the Matori Province (as much as he hated knowing how much suffering he’d have to see, he was embarrassingly excited to spend the time with Yangchen), about the upcoming wedding, about how worried Hina had been about it. That was an easy trail to spiral down and he couldn’t help but latch onto it, thinking of Hina’s eyes and determination and the way she’d told him he loved her last night when they’d finalized their plan to visit the Matori Province and kissed him tenderly, her hand pressed to his chest, and looked into his eyes and made him promise to come home to her and the way he’d been unable to resist capturing her lips again in reply-

“Oh! Sorry,” he muttered sheepishly when, lost in thought, he collided with someone.

“Aang, are you alright?”

“Hina!” he looked up at the sound of his wife’s voice and saw her standing in front of him with a stack of towels in one arm while the other hand rested against her hip. “Is she okay?”

Hina’s eyes softened at the worried creases around his eyes. “Yuna’s fine,” she said. “Trust me, she’s doing great.”

“She is?”

“What, did you doubt her?” Hina released him with a knowing smile. “Takes more than a baby to get the best of an Oyama.”

"Zuko said almost the exact same thing, you know.”

"Because Zuko knows what he's talking about," Hina said with a satisfied smirk.

"Well..." 

He trailed off, and Hina leaned in to peck his cheek before she turned. “I gotta get back to Katara with these towels. Don’t worry, I’ll come get you-“

“How long?”

Hina grimaced. “It’s going to be a while.”

* * *

“Yangchen, are you crying?”

Yangchen stiffened against the wall where she’d been resting, fists clenching. “I’m fine, Izumi.”

“Hey…” Izumi crouched beside her, one foot planted in the shaft of early-dawn light breaking through a high window and one out. “It’s okay to be worried about your sister. We all are.”

“I’m not ten, Izumi. I can deal with it.” Yangchen discreetly wiped at her eyes. “Yuna’s gonna be fine.”

“You were definitely crying.” Izumi watched her face – too red to hide her distress, unfortunately – with interest. “And not fine.”

“Leave me alone, Izumi.”

Sick of crouching, Izumi sat down beside Yangchen against the wall and took her hand. “Look, I get it. When Saki was born, I think I cried more than she did.”

“You were _seven,_ Izumi. That’s not exactly the same.”

“Some things are always hard, Chennie,” she said softly, massaging Yangchen’s palm the way she’d always done for her younger sisters when they were upset. It was an odd gesture to some, but it had always worked before. “I mean, yeah, Yuna’s going to be fine, but it’s scary. Statistically, more women die in childbirth than of any other-“

“Izumi!”

“Right, sorry.” Izumi’s filter had taken time and practice to cultivate and it still failed her from time to time. “To be fair, most women don’t have one of the most accomplished waterbending healers in the world around. Statistics? Statistics _who?”_ Izumi knew she was overcompensating but she wasn’t sure what else to do. Usually so polished, being flustered and awkward made her feel a special kind of panic. “So anyway…”

“You are _awful_ at this,” Yangchen sobbed, burying her face between her knees.

“Chennie, I’m so-“

“Oh, _save it!”_ Yangchen snapped. “Fine, yes, I’m freaking out. My sister is in labor, no one will tell me what’s going on, and even if everything is totally fine – which, _statistically,_ it probably won’t be! – she’s in so much pain that she’s probably scarred for life and Yuna has the _lowest_ pain tolerance-“

“All of that is totally valid, but I don’t think Yuna’s pain tolerance is actually that low.” Izumi dropped her hand and moved to rub her back instead. “Yours is just freakishly _high.”_

“Is _not!”_

“Yangchen, sweetie, you stepped on a nail sneaking into a room that was under construction and walked around with a hole in your foot for two days because you didn’t want to admit to sneaking into an off-limits area.”

“As anyone with a mother like mine would’ve done,” Yangchen said sheepishly.

“Your foot got infected, Yangchen. You couldn’t even put shoes on. And you just…didn’t think to tell anyone.”

“Izumi, what exactly is the point of this?”

“Plenty of women who don’t have your freakish pain tolerance give birth, and they all survive.”

“Didn’t you _just_ say-“

“Okay, I am _not_ helping.” Izumi ran her hand through her hair, scrambling for a solution. “Um…oh! I have an idea.”

  
“Kicking down the door to the birthing chambers and staying with my sister?”

“No, it’s something my great-uncle Iroh would do with me when my siblings were born.” She extended her arm to help Yangchen stand. “I’m not sure if you’ll like it, but it’ll get your mind off of things, at least.”

“Uh…”

“Actually, have you seen your brother lately? I feel like he’d be good to have around for this.”

“As far as I know, he’s still asleep.”

“Of course he is,” Izumi huffed. “The boy spends half of his life talking about how he has to ‘deny himself the comforts of the flesh’ and then sleeps through _this?”_

“Izumi, I’ve been telling you that Gyatso’s going off the deep end for years.” Yangchen grinned wickedly, though, which Izumi took as a good sign. “Want me to go wake him up?”

“Have at it, he ought to be awake when his nephew’s born, anyway.” Izumi was growing rather tired of Gyatso’s antics. “Meet me at the Shrine of the Sages when you have him, okay?”

“The Shrine of the Sages? Why?”

“You’ll see,” Izumi told her, which did nothing to sate Yangchen’s curiosity. Waking Gyatso was as diverting as she’d expected it to be – he may have been a firebender but he was decidedly _not_ a morning person – but she still couldn’t help but wonder.

The Shrine was dim and smelled overwhelmingly of incense when she finally managed to drag her brother up the steps and Izumi was already waiting inside, standing before a silver basin set on a pedestal. The flame inside was never to go out and normally the Fire Sages were responsible for its maintenance, but today, Izumi seemed to be feeding the flame herself. When she was done, she beckoned the Oyama siblings to join her and they followed as she kneeled on a red cushion on the step in front of the flame. Gyatso nodded in recognition, apparently familiar with whatever it was that Izumi was trying to do, but Yangchen felt oddly uneasy, kneeling in the heavy darkness.

“Gyatso, you know the Incantation for births, right?” she asked, her voice low.

  
“Of course,” he responded, his voice still gravelly with sleep. Yangchen noticed with annoyance that he hadn’t been half this compliant with _her._

“I already fed the flame, but I was hoping you’d say it with me,” she said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Gyatso nodded and paused for a few moments before his voice rose through the stifling air, stilted and awkward in a language Yangchen didn’t recognize. Izumi’s joined it soon, their words intertwining, Izumi’s confident contralto meeting Gyatso’s nervous stammer as they recited the words of the unfamiliar Incantation. It was nearly like a song, its cadence melodious, but they were not singing, and Izumi’s voice dropped out after a few verses. She and Gyatso shared a nod and she stood, bowing before the flame and taking hold of a small silver pitcher on a nearby table. Now Gyatso stopped speaking and she took over, reciting the Incantation with practiced efficiency as she sprinkled – ashes? Dust? Some sort of powder, Yangchen wasn’t sure what – into the basin. It flared and she returned to kneel upon the cushion as the two finished their recitation.

They sat in silence, heads bowed, but Yangchen’s was not.

She’d never seen the point of the pomp and ritual of Fire Nation worship. It was all so stuffy, so detached she couldn’t see how it mattered a whit what _she_ did. It left her with a gnawing sense of unease, not wanting to believe the words and ceremonies meant anything but feeling, deep down, that they did. It terrified her, the idea that she did not control her own destiny, and as she stared into the heart of the flame in the dark, aromatic shrine with only a sliver of morning light slipping through the windows, Yangchen felt as small as she had here as a girl.

She didn’t _want_ to pray, didn’t want to invoke anyone’s aid, didn’t want to ask when she’d rather throw her own hat in the ring and be there with her sister than anything. She didn’t even know what the words of the ritual had meant, and she did not want to pray.

But the thought of the danger her sister was in – _her_ Yuna, always the rock of their family, all the million good and soft and gentle things that Yangchen wouldn’t ever be, the dutiful sister who’d nonetheless had the courage to rock their family on its axis for love – overcame her resistance.

_Please,_ she mouthed to anyone listening. _Please keep my sister safe._

“That Incantation invokes Agni’s protection for the mother and child,” Izumi explained after a moment, after she’d stood and brushed dust from her robes. “We’d always do it for my mom, so I thought you might…I don’t know, take comfort in it. I always did when I was little.”

She felt no less frightened, but Yangchen almost smiled as she stood. “Thank you, Izumi, really.”

“I know you’re not really religious, but…something to take your mind off of it, right?”

“Yeah. Actually…it kind of was.”

* * *

“So, you’re gonna be an aunt, huh?”

“Go away, Hyun.”

“Agni, Kya, I was just going to congratulate you. What did I even _do_ to you?”

“Look, this is weird for me, okay?” Kya pressed her palm to her forehead. “I don’t know why, but it’s just…a lot to take in. Can you please just let me be?”

“Kya…” Hyun looked hurt and he reached for her arm, almost surprised when she didn’t pull it back. “We’re going to be married in two weeks. Shouldn’t we be able to talk?”

“If you think the wedding’s going to change anything, you have another thing coming.”

“Why do you hate me so much?”

“I don’t. I just know better than to think people who claim that they love me actually will.”

“I never claimed to love you, Kya.”

  
“Good.”

“What I _claimed_ is that you’re my fiancée and you’re clearly scared and you _really_ need a hug. You won’t give me the time of day, fine. But can you at least let me help you?”

“I don’t need your help!”

Hyun folded her into his arms before she could get another word out and at first, Kya stiffened with a muffled shriek of indignation into his shirt. But she relaxed into his embrace after a moment and-

_Oh, Spirits, this is nice._

He smelled of pine and anise, and, standing several inches taller than her, he surrounded her almost completely. His shoulders were broad and his torso built, but his arms – strong as she knew them to be after the few times she’d covertly watched him earthbend – were gentle, firm but never insistent. Broad hands stroked her back and she shivered beneath his touch, melting and burning and resisting and succumbing all at once. He ducked his chin to rest on her shoulder and she found her arms winding around his waist, holding on tight as she buried her nose in his coarse green training tunic and breathed him in.

“There you go,” he said soothingly, still not ready to let go. “I think you needed that.”

“You’re still annoying,” she sniffed, shocked to learn how close to tears she’d come. “But thank you.”

  
“You know what the great thing about marrying me is?”

“This ought to be good.”

“You get these whenever you want them.”

“Special occasions only,” Kya replied, because, apparently, she loved tormenting herself. _He can’t know how badly you needed this,_ one part of her insisted, while the other screamed _yes! Yes, let him hold you like this as often as he wants to!_ And neither wanted to be the first to blink.

“Okay.” Hyun released her and she missed his warmth almost immediately. “And again, congratulations.”

“Thanks, Hyun.”

He was smiling as he turned back to meet her eyes again. “Of course, Kya.”

* * *

Ryuji didn’t think his eyes had ever been so wide, but he did not want to miss the smallest sliver of this moment. “Sora. That’s you,” he murmured, gently bouncing the bundle in his arms and catching his wife’s tired smile out of the corner of his eye. “Uh…hi.” He wasn’t exactly sure what he was supposed to be doing, but he felt like the moment deserved _some_ words, no matter how inarticulate. “Um…I’m your dad?”

  
“So awkward,” Yuna said, laughing softly in spite of her exhaustion. “You say that as if it surprises you.”

At her words, Ryuji knelt by the bedside again, placing their son in her arms again and feeling almost too warm to bear at the way he snuggled against her bare shoulder. She stroked one finger along the curve of his small face, eyes lit up in awe, and Ryuji took a seat on the bed beside her, careful not to jostle them. Yuna leaned gratefully into his side as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “We _did_ that,” he said softly after a moment. “We _made a thing.”_

Yuna let her son wrap a tiny hand around her finger and visibly melted. “We made a thing,” she repeated, eyes moist. “How long do you think it’ll be before the rest of our family-“

“I’m an _aunt,_ people!” Sakari whooped as she threw the door open with gusto, and the couple exchanged a sigh that was somewhere between amusement and exhaustion.

* * *

“Hey, Chennie?”

“Yeah?” Yangchen looked up from the carpet she’d been examining a little too intently since she’d entered the room along with the rest of their family a few moments before. They’d all gone now – Ryuji, too, whose father had wanted to talk to him alone – but Yangchen had hung back, sticking to the outskirts of the room but remaining inside.

Yuna shifted Sora – “it’s Fire National but it means ‘air,’” as they’d explained the apparent cultural compromise they’d come to on the topic of their son’s name – against her shoulder. “Do you want to hold him?”

“Um.” Yangchen’s self-assurance was all but gone now as she wrung her hands, barely able to look at the baby or his mother. “I…I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Nonsense, Chennie. You’re my sister. Sora should meet his favorite aunt.”

“He’s an hour old, Yuna. How could he possibly have a favorite already?”

“I don’t know, but I just know he does.” Yuna tickled his nose with a wistful smile. “Don’t you, Sora? Don’t you have your favorite auntie already picked out?”

“Oh, Agni, not the baby talk,” Yangchen groaned.

Yuna was undeterred, though. If anything, her sister’s discomfort egged her on. “Oh? What’s that you say?” she cooed. “Auntie Saki is your favorite? But Sora! I thought I told you to pick _my_ sister!”

“Okay, _enough,”_ Yangchen sighed, disgruntled by the mere idea of losing to Sakari in _anything,_ no matter how ridiculous. “I’m not gonna be good at it, I’m warning you now.”

“There’s nothing to be good at, Chennie. Just hold the baby.”

As gently as she could, Yangchen lifted the bundle that was her nephew from her sister’s arms and shifted uncomfortably, trying to support him. He blinked as she did so and the moment his blue eyes flicked open and he realized that he was decidedly _not_ in his mother’s arms, he began to wail.

_Hysterically._

“Wait, what?” Yangchen yelped, so startled she forgot to keep quiet. “What did I do?”

Yuna simply laughed. “Would it make you feel any better to know that he didn’t do that for any of his other aunts?”

* * *

Ryuji hadn’t been quite sure what to expect when his father had asked him for a word in private, but it hadn’t, in _any_ of the hypothetical scenarios that had run through his mind, been this.

For a moment, his father hadn’t said a word. He’d pulled Ryuji into a crushing embrace that he hadn’t had the slightest desire to resist, even when his father’s tears began to wet the back of his shirt. He’d held on as tightly as Zuko had, feeling like a child again.

“I’m so _proud_ of you,” he’d choked when he finally let go, hands clasping Ryuji’s shoulders, and Ryuji hadn’t been sure what to say. “ _So proud.”_

“Thanks, Dad,” he’d finally managed to stammer, overwhelmed.

“I…I had all this advice,” Zuko admitted sheepishly. “But I can’t remember any of the speech I was going to give you, so…”

“Dad, I don’t need speeches.” Shaken and overwhelmed and high on a heady mix of adrenaline and euphoria as he was, Ryuji was rather proud of the semblance of composure he managed to maintain. “I’m honestly just glad that you’re not mad that I ran away with the girl you told me not to marry.”

“I was wrong, Ryu. I hope you know that.”

“Dad, believe me, I do.” That took absolutely no effort to admit. “There was never anyone but Yuna.”

“And I see that now,” Zuko admitted with a sad smile. “She’s a wonderful girl.”

“The most.” Ryuji ducked his head to (poorly) conceal his sappy expression. “She’s…she’s the only reason I’m not terrified that Sora’s going to get messed up.”

“He has two capable parents, Ryuji. No reason why he should.” Zuko was clearly trying to reassure his son, but the shadows crossing his face told Ryuji that he wasn’t totally convinced by his own words.

“No, he has _one_ capable parent and one who has no idea what he’s doing.”

“Can I let you in on something, Ryuji?”

“Um…sure?”

“Yuna doesn’t know what she’s doing, either.”

“Great, so he’s got _two_ parents who don’t know what they’re doing?”

“No, he’s got two parents who have to _learn_ to know what they’re doing.” Zuko clasped Ryuji’s shoulder again. “We all do. You’re not special in that.”

“But-“

“Do you love him, Ryuji?”

That was another easy answer. “More than I ever thought I could.”

Zuko nodded approvingly. “And Yuna?”

“Looks at him like he’s the reason the sun rises.”

“Then you have your answer. He’s going to be just fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dying to know: which scene in this was your favorite? Mine would definitely have to be the Hyunya scene, which annoys me, because that was the one I put the least thought into. Kind of wrote itself. 
> 
> Sigh.


	9. The Road Ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hina and Aang discuss the Matori Crisis before he and Yangchen head out. Sakari frets. Katara gives Kya a gift and advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a total filler chapter to give us some time to build up character relationships before the Matori scenes and the Hyun/Kya wedding, so...uh, have at it.
> 
> Also, I and a lot of my Zutara friends have been getting grief on our work from the same user lately, and to that I just want to point out that it costs $0 to be kind. Seriously. You never know what someone could be working through in their writing.

“You know that it’s not going to be pretty, right?”

“I’m aware, Hina.” Aang let his eyes flutter closed, as if shutting out the world could stop it for a moment. They opened again, though, when Hina reached up from the place she was lying against his chest and pressed her cool, small hand to his cheek.

“This is just about the worst place that these tensions could’ve arisen,” Hina said. Her words were businesslike but she cuddled into her husband’s side, desperate to keep him close for this one final night. “I had family in the Matori Province growing up and even back then, it was tense.”

“Wasn’t the border region of the Earth Kingdom a Fire Nation colony at the time?” Aang asked, his hand tracing circles across her shoulders.

“Yeah, which is why there was so much mixing,” Hina explained. “A lot of Earth Nationals ended up on what became the Fire Nation side of the border after the war. It wasn’t most Fire Nationals’ favorite thing – more hands to work meant less land to go around, or so they claimed.”

“But they stayed.”

“By that time, they had lives there,” she said softly, pressing her palm to his chest. “They had land to work. Their children had grown up there. Some, like my father, had married Earth Nationals. They weren’t about to leave just because the war was over.”

“Wasn’t your mother a Kyoshi Warrior, though?”

“Yes, but the point stands,” Hina huffed, her hot breath ghosting across his skin. “There’s a big Earth National population there now and an even bigger mixed one, so when those raids started happening, well…”

“They took the blame?” Aang guessed.

“Yeah,” Hina said softly. “Old habits die hard. The moment those bandits started raiding their villages, the Fire Nationals made scapegoats of them – friends, neighbors, didn’t matter as soon as their livelihoods were on the line.”

“And the Earth Queen is understandably incensed about all of this, I take it.”

“That’s the understatement of the year. Her citizens – well, not citizens… _former_ citizens? – are being targeted for something they had nothing to do with by the people who oppressed them for a century. She’s not exactly a sterling example of leadership, but I would be angry, too.”

“Hopefully she’ll get the intervention efforts underway after the wedding,” Aang said, though he knew that neither of them were convinced that she would.

“Yeah, hopefully, but who knows? She’s never exactly been consistent before.” Hina shifted, propping herself up on her elbows. In spite of the seriousness of the exchange, neither could help but smile as she looked down at him, tendrils of her hair brushing his bare chest.

“Hi,” Aang said softly, forgetting with too much ease that they’d been talking about a diplomatic crisis only seconds ago. He reached up to push a strand of shoulder-length hair behind her ear.

“Hi,” she replied, leaning down to kiss the tip of his nose. Her robe was beginning to slip off her shoulder and she tried to push it back up, an attempt that was more than a little awkward in her current position where she lay against his chest. Aang reached up and pulled the fabric back into place, pressing his lips to her exposed shoulder before he did.

“You’re beautiful,” he said softly, taking her in.

“Aang, I’m trying to brief you.”

“If you wanted me to pay attention to a briefing, you shouldn’t have done it in bed.” He looped his arms around her neck. “You’re very distracting.”

“Oh, really?” she teased. “Hm. Distracting enough to convince you not to go into a war zone?”

“Hina, you _know_ that this is my job.”

“I know,” she sighed. “And it’s not like you’ve never been in danger before, but…”

“But?”

“I guess…this time it’s personal,” Hina admitted. “This is…these people are like me, Aang. It already scares me enough that it’s happening in the first place. So add the fact that my husband _and_ my daughter – who’s an _Earthbender,_ I just want to point out – are going to throw themselves into the middle of a highly volatile situation and…I’m half-beside myself, Aang.”

“Hina, love…”

“Don’t, Aang. Don’t tell me this is just like every other diplomatic mission, because it _isn’t._ You could end up caught in the middle of an all-out war.”

“I’m going to _prevent_ a war, Hina.” He pulled her close and she laid against him, moving her arms from the position that had held her up to wrap them around his torso. “Don’t you worry, short stuff. I always come back to you, don’t I?”

“I guess,” she murmured. “But Yangchen-“

“Hina, when I say that I’m less worried for Yangchen’s safety than I am for my own, I mean it.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “She’s ruthless. If she’s in danger, she’ll earthbend anyone foolish enough to attack her into next year and run for it.”

“I hope so,” Hina sighed.

“We’re coming back to you, Hina. I promise.”

“You better,” Hina said, wresting herself from his arms so she could prop herself up again. Her hand cradled his cheek and she closed her eyes for a moment, hoping she could burn this image into her mind – those eyes looking up at her, that adoring expression – for the uncertain days to come. “I love you, little Avatar.”

“I love you even more, short stuff,” he said fondly, leaning up to kiss her.

“Come back to me,” she murmured against his lips after they’d broken the kiss.

“I’ll always come back to you.”

* * *

"Chennie, wait!" 

Yangchen turned. "Saki?" she asked, hoisting the slipping handle of her duffel bag back up her shoulder. "What's wrong?" 

Sakari came to a stop, short of breath, in front of Yangchen. She had to rest her palms against her knees, bent at the waist, to catch her breath, and Yangchen eyed her quizzically for a moment, wondering if she'd run here and unsure what would compel Sakari to do such a thing. "Nothing," she panted, straightening her back and her off-kilter tunic and pushing a few stray locks of hair behind her ears. It was getting late, and Saki hadn't bothered to change out of the loose cotton pants and tunic she always wore to bed. "I just wanted to catch you before you and your dad head out tomorrow." 

Yangchen slackened her grip on the strap of her bag. "Oh, uh...okay," she replied cautiously, fighting a curious urge to push her hair out of her face the way Saki had. Instead, she raised her arms in a halfhearted shrug. "Well, you caught me."

"Chennie," she tried again, softer this time, and Yangchen's breath caught briefly, like a zipper snagging on a piece of fabric and quickly put to rights, at the way her face fell. "I'm worried about you." 

"Yeah, well, I'm worried about me too," she sighed. _Can you not?_ she wanted to ask. _Can you not show up to distract me when I most need to focus?_

But she didn't. She knew the risks of this trip far too well for that.

" _Chen."_

Try as she might to ignore it, the exasperated drawl in Saki's voice amused her. " _Socks."_

"Don't call me Socks." 

"Don't remind me that I'm cavorting off into a war zone, then." 

"Please be safe, Chennie." Sakari grabbed her wrist, if only to get her attention; Yangchen cursed the way her blood rushed to her cheeks, but she turned anyway, as if pulled by a magnet. "That's all I ask." 

"You shouldn't be asking me anything, Saki," Yangchen sighed. 

"You and I both know I'm not that selfless." Sakari's eyes hardened; where usually they were ocean-tempestuous, now they were bright and depthless as sapphires. "You're right - I shouldn't. But I care too much not to." 

"Nothing's gonna happen to me, Sakari." 

Sakari stiffened at the rare use of her full name, but she didn't say anything about it. "Is that a promise, Chennie?"

Yangchen paused. Her heart stuttered at the sudden softness in Saki's eyes - _why have I never noticed how quickly they changed before?_ she wondered - and, after a moment that lasted a lifetime, she opened her hands ever so slightly. 

"I promise, Saki," she said, and Sakari needed no more prompting to accept her friend's offer. She was the taller of the two, and Yangchen had always privately appreciated the way that even a girl as wiry as Sakari could surround Yangchen's tiny frame in her embrace. Her tunic, with which Yangchen's face had been made an unceremonious acquaintance when Sakari pulled her into her arms, smelled faintly of sea prunes; she had the dignity, at least, not to wrinkle her nose. 

She knew she couldn't keep that promise. 

She still meant to try.

* * *

“Kya? Can I come in?”

“Okay,” Kya called halfheartedly from the bed, unwilling to move. Lazily, she popped another sea prune in her mouth, shifting to let her back touch a fluffier part of her pillow. She hadn’t been expecting her mother so late at night but she supposed she could admit her, as she wasn’t exactly doing anything. She did, though, stuff the salacious romance novel she’d been reading into her pillowcase.

  
Kya would do a lot of questionable things, but admitting to her mother that she kept up her well-known teenage obsession with the dirtiest romance scrolls imaginable at twenty-five was not among them.

“I have something for you,” Katara said, pushing open the door. She was dressed for sleep, wearing one of Zuko’s training shirts like a nightgown with her hair loose, and the torchlight in the hall behind her bathed her features in soft, warm light.

“Oh, uh…thanks,” Kya said, merely because she did not know what else to say. She sat up, swinging her legs down to settle against the side of the bed.

Katara nodded at the silent permission and sat down beside her daughter on the edge of the bed. Kya waited for her to pull something from her tunic, but realized with a jolt that it had no pockets. _Advice? Is that what she wanted to give me? Because that’s about the only thing she could be-_

_Oh._

Kya’s heart stuttered when her mother reached behind her back and unclasped her betrothal necklace. She wore two – one of sky-blue silk with the symbol of the water tribe on its blue pendant, the other a rich purple silk carved with the sun and moon – and, when she looked down at the necklace in her hand, Katara flushed when she realized that she’d taken off the purple one. She hastily removed the blue necklace – her grandmother’s, Kya remembered – instead.

“This has been in my family for three generations,” Katara told her, pressing the pendant into her palm. “I think it’s about time that it was passed down to a fourth.”

“Mom, I can’t take this.” Kya’s finger traced the engraving on the pendant just to convince her that it was _real._ “Thank you, but…it doesn’t belong to me.”

“Kya, I’m giving it to you.” Her mother’s expression was hard to misinterpret. “You don’t have to wear it, but I want you to have it.”

“Shouldn’t it be Izumi’s?” she tried again, looking guiltily at the bedspread. “I…I don’t deserve something so important.”

Kya had never seen her mother take this necklace off, knew it was her last remaining emblem of her own mother’s love and her grandmother’s before that. It should, theoretically, have gone to her oldest daughter, if the unspoken laws of heirlooms were to be heeded. Not to _her._ Not to the reckless, do-no-right second daughter on whom absolutely no one had reason to confer such a mark of pride. The silk felt like fire in her hands and she almost dropped it.

“Izumi’s already getting the crown, Kya. We can’t have her monopolizing all of our family heirlooms.” It was clearly meant to be a joke, but neither laughed. “And Kya…I think Mom would’ve wanted you to have this.” Katara ducked her fingers under Kya’s chin. “Her namesake…”

“Second-to-last of the Southern waterbenders,” Kya finished hollowly.

“That’s right.” Katara held out her hand and Kya passed her the necklace; she set it around Kya’s neck, its pendant resting in the divot between her collarbones, and moved to sit behind her so she could clasp it. “She would be so proud of you, Kya.”

  
“She…would?”

Few people were _ever_ proud of Kya, save her mother. It was a strange idea.

“Kya, of course she would.” Katara sat in front of her again after the necklace was clasped. “My mother was willing to do anything to protect her family. So were you.” Katara’s eyes softened. “Not just anyone would’ve been willing to marry a man she’d never met at the drop of a hat for her family. But you did it without even hesitating.”

“It was nothing,” Kya said with absolutely no conviction.

“I know that it wasn’t nothing, sweetie,” Katara said softly. “And I’m sorry that it happened at all, but the fact is that you, in taking that on, are one of the bravest people I’ve ever met.”

Kya flushed, uncomfortable with the praise. “It’s not like I did anything spectacular. All I have to do is get married.”

“Marriage is lifelong, Kya. That’s a huge thing to be willing to do for someone.”

Kya shrugged, playing it off as she always did. “It’s not like we have to be _together,_ even though we’re married. We’re not the heirs, so we don’t need to have children. We barely know each other, so we don’t need to pretend to be in love. For all intents and purposes, I can just…pretend he doesn’t exist and go about my life.”

“Well, you certainly could,” Katara agreed. “But I don’t know how easy that will be to keep up.”

“Why wouldn’t it be easy? All I have to do is avoid him.”

“It might get lonely.” Katara shrugged. “Even though you don’t love him, you might find that you _want_ to fall asleep next to someone, or…that you want someone to hold you when things get rough. Point being, if Hyun is a good person – and I think he is-“

“He is,” Kya said hurriedly, blushing. “Annoying, but…he is.”

Katara smiled knowingly. “Then I think you might find yourself _wanting_ to be close to him.”

“I can’t imagine that ever happening,” Kya said, forcing the memory of his arms around her out of her mind. “But I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“My advice, sweetie?”

“Hm?”

“I think he likes you quite a bit,” Katara said with a smile full of implications Kya didn’t want to consider. “And if you ever find yourself wanting to let him love you, don’t force yourself to resist.”

“Mom, I’m marrying for political stability. I highly doubt anyone’s going to let anyone love anyone.”

“No, but Hyun probably wishes you would,” she said casually. “Granted, you’re under absolutely no obligation to do anything that you don’t want to do, but if you ever feel like kissing him senseless, I doubt the boy is going to mind.”

“Mom. _Please.”_

“I’m only kidding-“

“ _Still.”_

* * *

**_En route to the Matori Province_ **

**_One Week Later_ **

“So.”

“Yes?” Aang asked, wincing as the cart jolted over a divot in the road.

  
“I…actually have nothing to say, I’m just really bored.” Yangchen shrugged sheepishly.

“Do you, um…do you want to go over the plan again?”

“We’ve been over this three times, Dad. I think I’m okay.”

“Just trying to pass the time.” Aang shrugged. “Hm. I could tell you about riding the elephant koi…”

“Dad, I’m twenty-one.”

  
“It’s a good story!” Aang protested.

“I think I wore that one out when I was six and asked to hear it every single night for three months.”

“Okay, then. Uh-“

  
“Ooh! I actually do have one I want to hear,” Yangchen said. “You never actually told us how you met Mom.”

“I didn’t?”

“Nope!” Yangchen looked a little too pleased with herself. “I mean, I guess we always just assumed it had something to do with Zuko, but we didn’t actually know that.”

“Really,” Aang muttered. “I’m surprised.”

“I asked Mom once, but she said I wouldn’t have believed her if she told me and left it at that.” Yangchen shrugged. “So I’m twenty-one and I still don’t know how my parents met.”

“Okay, then.” Aang made a show of cracking his knuckles, settling in for the story. “It all started, as most things in your life do, with your mother yelling at the Fire Lord.”

“That…is not surprising at all.”

“Nope.” Aang couldn’t help but laugh. “After the war, Zuko had to disband his father’s inner circle and replace the advisors with people who’d be loyal. His uncle had worked with the leader of a resistance movement-“

“The Liberation League?”

“That’s the one. Anyways. His uncle had worked with the leader of the Liberation League, and he knew her to be…competent, so he suggested that Zuko hire her to replace his father’s Spymaster.” Aang smirked to himself. “Your mother made it _quite_ clear how she felt about his family, and the rest was history.”

“And you met her…how?”

“Oh, a few months later. Zuko got stabbed-“

“Wait, he _what?”_

“Oh, have we never told you that? He was stabbed. They called in Katara to heal him, and I was visiting her at the South Pole at the time, and she needed Appa to get there in time, so I went to the Fire Nation with her.”

“Wait, let me guess the rest.” Yangchen leaned forwards on her elbows. “You saw her and were immediately smitten, she couldn’t stand you, and you stayed in the Fire Nation for months trying to wear her down?”

“You sound more like your sister than you do like yourself,” Aang chuckled. “But no, that wasn’t exactly how it happened. In reality, we happened to have a conversation, I offered to help her get to the bottom of a conspiracy, and we became friends-“

“And you were aggressively pining after her that entire time?”

“Was not!” Aang said peevishly, crossing his arms and, in his petulance, seeming younger than his daughter. She laughed.

“Sure you weren’t.”

“No, really! I had…a crush on her, but I was only sixteen. I wasn’t _pining-_ pining until…hm…” he thought for a moment. “Sokka and Suki’s wedding.”

“The one where Katara and Zuko confessed to each other while so drunk that they didn’t even remember it in the morning?”

“That one.” Aang pressed his palm to his forehead, closing his eyes. “Spirits, they were dramatic back then.”

“ _Were?”_

“If you think they’re dramatic now, you should’ve seen them at eighteen and twenty.” Aang shook his head. “Half of the reason Hina and I got so close so quickly was because we bonded over our frustration at the two of them for being so irritatingly dense.”

“Wait, backing it up, why the wedding?” Yangchen asked. Aang had never expected his least-romantic child to be so invested in the details of his courtship, but he did love the story; he wouldn’t begrudge her a retelling. “Like, what happened?”

“I remember just…leaving her at the dock and…” he trailed off for a moment. “Realizing she meant something to me.”

“Did you kiss her?”

“…of course I didn’t.”

“Hm. Continue. Did she feel the same way?”

“Not at the time, I don’t think. She had more important things to worry about. But that came with time.”

“How, though?”

“Well…things were different after we got back to the Fire Nation,” he told her. “We were closer, even though neither of us wanted to say why or how. And we kept working together, and then a lot of things I don’t want to get into kind of pushed us together, and then we didn’t see each other for a year.”

“Um…?”

“And then she kissed me the next time she saw me.”

“You’re telling me you never made a move?”

“No, I asked her to dance!” he countered indignantly. “Twice!”

“But never actually _told her_ how you felt?”

“Did I need to? The most businesslike person I’d ever met had just kissed me.”

“Okay, but-“

“Sir?” the cart driver’s voice cut her off.

“Sorry, Yangchen, give me a minute,” Aang said. “Yes?”

“We’re about five minutes out of town, sir.”

Aang and Yangchen glanced back at each other, then out at the surroundings.

“Well, this is it,” she said, suddenly a little jumpier than she’d expected, and neither had anything better to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *doesn't write the obvious Yunuji/baby scene because I cannot write babies*


	10. Matori Crisis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aang and Yangchen realize that the diplomatic crisis they face is dire as they begin their work in the Matori Province. A week before the wedding, the Gaang arrives in the Fire Nation, the Earth Delegation has a feeling that something is off, and Hyun and Kya have a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we return you to your regularly-scheduled Plot. Enjoy.

“San, tell me what this means.” Minister To held up a slipper – green, made of soft calfskin, smaller than his own shoes and embroidered with silver thread – and shoved it at the elder Prince as if he were supposed to know what its significance was.

“Uh, I don’t know.” San shrugged helplessly. “It’s…a shoe. What else is there to say?”

“Think, Prince. What is it about this shoe that’s so unusual?”

“Um…it’s fancy?” San scratched his chin. “It looks like it belongs to a woman?”

Minister To heaved a sigh. “It’s _green,_ Prince,” the disgruntled Foreign Minister said. “Who would own a green slipper in the Fire Nation?”

“Oh, yeah.” San had to admit to himself that it was odd, having something so expensive made in a color so unlike that of the home country. “Maybe it belongs to Mother?”

“I’ve asked, San. It doesn’t. Nor does it belong to your brother or any of the officials in our retinue, and none of your mother’s maidservants would own something so obviously expensive.” Minister To looked at him expectantly, as one might look at a child asked to add two and two. “So what conclusion must we come to, Prince San?”

“That…um…” San wracked his brain. “That someone in the Fire Nation has green slippers.”

“It pains me to admit that I’m almost impressed by your powers of observation, Prince.”

“So, uh…whose is it?” San asked, unsure what to make of Minister To’s faint praise.

“Ah, you’ve _finally_ gotten to the relevant question.” Minister To tapped his fingers rhythmically against the nightstand. “One could assume from its color and style that the shoe is of Earth Kingdom origin, so its owner must have traveled there at some point – and, given the condition that the shoe is in, they probably did so recently.” He handed San the shoe to examine. “That, of course, would make the Spymistress our most likely suspect, but, I doubted she’d be the type to leave it lying around. I then suspected that it might’ve been a gift to the royal family, so I asked each of the Princesses if it was theirs. It was not, but the youngest knew whose it was.”

“Why do we care who the slipper belongs to, though?” San asked, having absorbed very little of that save that the Foreign Minister seemed far too obsessed with the mystery of its ownership.

  
“Because, Prince, I found it shortly after our last debrief, hastily discarded in the hallway only yards away from this room.”

“So someone went around barefoot. What’s the big deal?”

“You know, San, it is truly remarkable how swiftly, after giving me some modicum of faith in your abilities, you manage to dash it.”

“Minister To, I don’t get it,” San said imploringly. “Can you please just tell me why the shoe matters and whose it is?”

“Those slippers – and the plate of moon peach buns I found with them – were not in the hallway when we went in to brief. Thus, someone must’ve discarded them there while we were meeting, and we were not exactly keeping our voices down. So it follows that whoever the owner of this slipper is overheard our conversation and fled, leaving her things behind.” He sniffed. “Rather solid instinct, taking the shoes off to muffle her footsteps, but she should’ve carried them. Never leave a trace behind – I’d think her mother would’ve taught her that.”

“Her mother?”

“Oh, right.” Minister To resumed his finger-tapping. “Princess Sana kindly informed me that this slipper belongs to Spymistress Oyama’s younger daughter, Yangchen.”

“So Yangchen overheard us?”

  
“And fled,” Minister To added. “And where, Prince, do you think she would immediately go after overhearing information of interest to the security of the nation her family serves?”

“Her mom,” San said, realization dawning on his face. “Oh, no. That’s not good.”

“Thank the _Spirits_ you have some sense left in you,” Minister To sighed. “Yes, exactly. In all likelihood, we have to assume that the Spymistress knows everything.”

“So what do we do?”

“Your brother marries Princess Kya in a week. Until then, the palace will be far too caught up in the preparations to notice anything. That is our opportunity to lay the groundwork upon which we build our actions after the wedding, once everyone’s guard is brought down by the false belief that things will die down upon their marriage.” Minister To looked at the prince pointedly. “You know what we have to do, Prince.”

“Minister To, we _can’t_.”

“Do you want to succeed or do you not?” Minister To’s finger-tapping picked up speed. “Because if you do, you will authorize the execution of the backup plan.”

“No.” San shook his head, amazed that he had the spine to say it. “I’m not going to let you do this. It was bad enough that I agreed to help you start your war-“

“A perfectly just war of attrition, San, don’t be dramatic.”

“No. My answer is no. Start your war, go after whoever you want, but I’m not going to get anyone’s blood on my hands.”

“Fine, then.” Minister To snapped his fingers to summon the Dai Li agents guarding the door. “We’ll have to do this the hard way.”

* * *

“So…you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yeah, I did.” Watching Hyun stand awkward and out-of-place in the doorway, Kya had never felt more unprepared, but ut would do no good to let him see that. “I think that, uh…with the wedding so close, we should discuss our…expectations.”

“Expectations?” Hyun asked, cocking his head a little to the side. Kya chose to diplomatically ignore the way her stomach swooped at the utterly _adorable_ expression of confusion on her fiancé’s face, or the endearing earnestness of his head-tilt. He regained his bearings a moment later and came to join her, sitting down beside Kya on a stone bench overgrown with vines. “What do you mean?”

“I just think we should lay out…boundaries,” Kya said cautiously. “What we both want to get out of this marriage, and what we want to avoid.”

“You make it sound so…businesslike,” Hyun commented. “But okay. I think that’s a good idea.”

“So…um. I want to keep my bedroom, for one. You’ll get your own, but I think…” Kya’s face fell and she wasn’t even sure why. “I think it’d be best if we stuck to separate rooms.”

“Okay,” Hyun said evenly. “I’d be okay with it if you ever wanted to crash with me-“

“Crash,” Kya repeated, laughing hollowly. “As if I’m one of your bachelor buddies and not your _wife.”_

“I don’t _have_ any ‘bachelor buddies,’ Kya.” He glared at her. “I’m trying to be _nice_ here. Anyway. What I was saying is that if you ever feel like – for whatever reason – you wanna share a bedroom, I won’t mind.”

“How generous,” Kya said drily. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“I know we’re just going to be friends-“

“’Friends’ seems like an overstatement, Hyun.”

“-friends,” Hyun repeated, because _that,_ apparently, he wouldn’t compromise on. “I know we’re just going to be friends, but I also know you’re lonely, and I’ve been told I’m comforting to be around, so if you ever wanna…you know…”

“No, I don’t know.” Kya wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that he _was_ right, that she felt safe in his presence even as he irritated her. “Please explain.”

“I don’t know, just…have someone with you, I’m always here.” He moved his hand an inch, seemingly wondering if it was safe to touch her, but ultimately left it where it was. “I may not be in love with you-“

“You sure about that?”

“What, do you want me to be?” Hyun challenged, his eyes starting to sparkle again.

“Well, it _would_ be flattering,” Kya said as flatly as she could manage. “But I’d really rather not have you pining after me our whole lives.”

“I don’t _pine,_ Kya.”

“Anyone can pine, given the right motivation.”

“Well, as I was saying, I may not be in love with you, but I want you to be happy, so if you don’t want me pining over you, I won’t pine.” He tried to smile reassuringly but his face was a little too lopsidedly downcast to make it convincing. “I just…look, Kya, you’re not making this easy for either of us, but I want you to…not be miserable, and it’s hard to do that when _you_ don’t even seem to know what would make you happy.”

“Maybe I don’t,” she said softly. “But the one thing I do know is that I don’t really want to make this weirder than it already is.” She glanced down at her lap, her hands fidgeting. “I don’t want to act like we’re in love, I don’t want you seeing me in any state of undress, and yes, I’m selfish enough to admit that I don’t plan on giving you a say in the matter. I don’t want children. Agni, Hyun, I don’t want to marry you at _all.”_ She dropped her face, burying it in her hands and trying to ignore the prickly feeling in her throat as the words poured out. “I don’t _want_ another person who’s supposed to love me and just ignores me, and I don’t want to be a figurehead or shoulder all the expectations that come with getting married, and…”

“Kya, look at me,” Hyun said softly after a moment. He’d been reluctant to touch her, but he ducked his fingers under her chin, sending a shudder up her spine at the feather-light brush of his fingers. She’d not been touched in so long that she felt every moment contact intensely and she’d never have admitted that it shook her the way it did, but she felt frighteningly vulnerable in her own sensitivity. “I don’t want to hurt you, or make you feel worse than you already do. So if you want me to leave you alone…”

“But I _don’t!”_ she snapped, jerking her chin from his hand. He didn’t relent, though, setting his hands gently on her shoulders instead. “I’ve had _enough_ of being alone. I wanted to find someone who’d love me enough to make it so that I wouldn’t have to be, but instead I got a total stranger!”

“I’m so sorry, Kya.” Hyun looked almost ashamed. “I’m so sorry that I-“

“And it’s not even _you!”_ Kya continued, undeterred. “I could’ve gotten some psychopath who’d beat me or a selfish jerk or a scheming politician, and instead I got the… _nicest_ person I could ever have asked for, and I hate that I can’t blame how I’m feeling on you because it _isn’t_ your fault.” She took in a long, shuddery breath. “It’s just me. It’s _always_ me.”

“What’s always you?”

“The problem.” She looked back down at her lap, imploring herself not to cry in his presence. “The problem is always me.”

“You aren’t a problem, Kya.” Hyun moved his hands from his shoulders to her waist and, as much as she’d claimed to hate hugs, she leaned in gratefully. “You might be hotheaded and kind of mean for no reason-“

“There’s a reason, Hyun, you just don’t see it.”

“Anyway. None of that means you’re a _problem.”_ He finally managed to catch her eyes. “You’re smart and scary and talented and brave and a _way_ better person than anyone gives you credit for. And you’re _not_ a problem.”

“Why are you so _nice_ to me?”

“Kya, you’re crying. What kind of person would I be if I yelled at you right now?” He paused for a moment. “Even though that’s what you’re doing to me?”

Kya had no answer for that.

“This never happened,” she said sharply, after a moment.

“What never happened?” he played along, smiling as his calloused palms – they were earthbender’s hands, not those of a prince, and Kya couldn’t help but admire them for that – smoothed circles in the fabric of her dress.

“Good boy.” She patted his back sarcastically, biting back the sweet warmth spreading through her veins at his gentle touch. “Such a quick learner.”

“I know you’re being sarcastic, Kya.” He let her go, looking back at her with a challenging smirk. “Because I, unlike some people I know, learned to speak a language other than ‘yelling at everything’.”

“Says Mister ‘amiable but slow-witted hunk’ over here?”

“What are you, fifteen?” Hyun looked as if he wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or offended by the accusation.

“What kind of a comeback was _that?_ See, told you-“

“Keep doing this and we’ll see how ‘amiable’ I am in twenty minutes, Watergirl.”

Kya cracked her knuckles. “Challenge accepted, Dirtboy.”

* * *

“Do you want to come out and join us, darling?” Ryuji opened the bedroom door a crack, shifting Sora in his arms. “Uncle Sokka and Aunt Suki just got here, and the twins are asking about you.”

“Ryu, I’m _dying,”_ Yuna groaned, not moving. “I know I should go greet everyone, but I don’t want to move.” Nevertheless, she sat up against the pillows, rubbing at her weary eyes. “How’s Sora doing?”

“Well, I think it’s safe to say that he’s got our extended family’s seal of approval.” Ryuji smiled softly down at his son, napping in his arms. Their family and friends were ostensibly in town for Kya’s wedding, but it might as well have been for the baby but for the way everyone fawned over him. “Won’t wake up, which I really wish we could bottle up and save for later. Even Toph and Lin thought he was great, and you know how those two are.”

“I really should go say hi,” Yuna sighed. “But…Agni, I don’t even know how I’m going to make it through the wedding at this rate. I probably look like death itself.”

“No, you look like you just had a baby and you haven’t slept in two weeks,” Ryuji corrected her, sitting down beside her. He smoothed her matted hair out of her face. “I’m sure everyone would love to see you, but they’d all understand if you don’t feel up to it.”  
  


“Thanks,” Yuna said, craning her neck to kiss Ryuji’s forehead. It was just about all she had the energy for and Ryuji returned the favor. “I think I’ll have to pass for now. I’ll see them all at dinner, I’m sure.”

“Get ready for three hours of unsolicited parenting advice.” Ryuji flopped down on the bed beside her, still cradling Sora to his chest. “I wish I could’ve dodged them if only to get out of the eighty-five ‘here’s how not to screw up your kid’ lectures I got while they took turns hogging Sora.”

“Popular, are you?” Yuna tickled her son’s nose, smiling tiredly. “I have no idea where you get it. Your parents were the weird nerd duo growing up.”

“Should we be jealous?” Ryuji teased.

  
“I’m a lot more jealous of the fact that he’s actually gotten sleep in the last two weeks.” Yuna glanced over at Ryuji, patting the comforter beside her. “Think you could stay behind and catch up with me?”

“Yeah, I think we could swing that,” Ryuji said, standing to set Sora down in the bassinet next to their bed. He laid beside her, then, sighing contentedly as Yuna laid her head on his chest and snuggled down against him, her eyes fluttering closed. He wrapped an arm around her back and let the familiar warmth of her body beside his lull him into a half-asleep stupor.

“Wake me before dinner, okay?” she murmured as she nodded off.

“’Course,” he replied. “Love you.”

“It’s not like we’re saying goodnight,” she teased tiredly.

“Felt like a good time to say it.”

“’m never gonna object to that.” She nuzzled her cheek against the thin cotton of his shirt. “Love you too.”

* * *

**_Kanashimi – Matori Province_ **

****

“Miss!” Yangchen turned at the sound of a child’s voice. “Miss, could you spare a copper?”

Yangchen’s heart fell when she took in the scene: two children, the boy – maybe eight – who’d spoken, and a younger girl, stared up at her with huge, hungry green eyes. She’d seen countless beggars, countless people displaced or on the run, but none so young as these. She crouched in front of them.

“Here,” she said, holding out the mango she’d stowed in her pack for later. “I don’t have cash on me” – she’d been told by the innkeeper at the hostel she’d chosen to stay at not to carry any, lest her Earth Kingdom ties make her a target of anything untoward – “but I hope this helps.”

The boy’s eyes went wide and the fruit looked almost too heavy for him to hold, though he held it to his face. “A whole mango just for us?”

Yangchen wanted to laugh at the boy’s unabashed sweetness, but the idea of it left a sour taste in her mouth. “All for you,” she said softly. “You guys need it more than I do.”

“Thank you,” the little girl said shyly, holding onto her brother’s tunic and peeking out from behind him. “We were s’posed to go-“

The boy elbowed his sister. “Kimi, _no.”_

“It’s all right, Kimi,” Yangchen said. “What were you supposed to do?”

“Our parents were s’posed to come back after they got us some food and they told us we’d have sesame buns and-“

  
“They’re not coming back, Kimi.” The boy’s eyes were soft but his tone was firm, firmer than such a young boy’s should ever have had to be.

It was only then that Yangchen noticed the children’s eyes – green, like hers. “You’re Earth Nationals, aren’t you?” she said, her stomach clenching. She knew what had happened to these children’s parents without even asking.

The boy nodded. “They burned our house down,” he said miserably.

“I’m so sorry,” Yangchen told them, because there seemed to be nothing else to say.

“Are you running away, too?” the boy asked. “Your eyes are green. If you’re not careful, they’re gonna get you too.”

“No, actually, I live in the city,” Yangchen said, chills racing up her spine at the thought of the turn of events that would have to play out to result in a child saying something so chilling with such nonchalance. “I’m like you, and I came here to try to stop things like that from happening.”

“I hope it works, lady,” Kimi said, poking her head out from behind her brother’s legs again. “’Cause I’m sick of sleeping on the side of the road.”

“I’m so sorry, my sister-“

“No, it’s all right. I would be upset too.” Yangchen looked to the girl now. “How would you like to come with me so I can find somewhere for you to stay?”

“Can you do that?” the boy asked, his eyes widening.

“Well, that’s what I came here to do, so I can try,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Tomo,” he told her. “And this is my sister, Kimi.”

“Well, Tomo and Kimi, would you like to come find a place to sleep that’s not the side of the road?”

She didn’t have to ask twice.

* * *

“Sir!”

A frantic villager threw open the door to the meeting hall, panting and wide-eyed. Aang’s eyes weren’t the only ones to lock on him the moment he entered.

  
“Yes, Hikaru?” the mayor of Kanashimi, a perpetually-exhausted man in his fifties, crossed his arms. “What exactly is it that you think warranted such an excessive entrance?”

“Some firebenders in town are trying to light buildings on fire,” Hikaru panted. “Mostly Earth Nationals’ homes, shops…you get the point. If they don’t stop-“

“The whole town is made of bamboo and rice paper,” a city councilman cut in. “It’ll burn down in minutes.”

Aang was out of his seat before anyone could give further instructions, almost breaking into a run until a familiar voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Dad!” Yangchen called, and he turned to find her running towards him, a little girl on her hip and a boy jogging close behind. She wasn’t supposed to reveal her identity, they both knew that; but now, secrecy didn’t seem important. “This place is going to be up in flames in twenty minutes if we don’t do something!”

  
“I know, Chennie.” Off in the distance, the telltale sound of crackling wood and the scent of smoke were becoming stronger. “I’ll do my best to-“

“Try sucking the oxygen out of the buildings. If there’s nothing for them to burn, the fires will go out,” Yangchen suggested. “I’m going to try to take these two out somewhere safer, but I’ll be-“

“No, you won’t be, Chennie.” Aang didn’t have time for this, but he wasn’t going to leave without properly instructing his daughter. “Give me twelve hours to find you. If I don’t, leave immediately, you hear me?”

“Dad, I-“

“Twelve hours and you’re out of here!” he called over the sound of the chaos erupting around them. “And tell your mother that I love her!”

“Dad, you’re _not-“_

“Chennie, _go!”_

With one last reluctant look at her father, Yangchen took Tomo’s hand, shifted Kimi on her hip, and broke into a run.

* * *

It had begun to rain by the time Yangchen was far enough down the country road leaving the village to stop for her breath. Thick droplets collided with her thin green tunic, and Kimi complained of the cold; try as she might to shelter them, they were as soaked as she by the time they reached the first house off the road and stepped onto its covered porch, sighing as they knocked and then took a moment to enjoy the dry warmth of the porch.

A woman opened the door with a rather confused expression that quickly turned worried. “Hello?” she asked. “Do you…need anything?”

“I’m not sure if you know this, but the village is burning,” Yangchen said, cutting right to the chase. She noted that the woman’s eyes were Fire Nation amber and prayed she was making the right call in choosing to ask to stay here. “I’m an aid worker, and these two children were begging on the roadside when I found them. We need a safe place to stay until, um…” she couldn’t say ‘until my father finds me,’ so she settled with “until the rain lets up. Could we, um, maybe…”

“You’re all Earth National?” the woman asked, and Yangchen’s heart thumped in her chest.

  
“Yes,” Yangchen admitted. “I’m, um…I’m Amara, and this is Tomo and Kimi.”

“Of course you can stay,” the woman said, opening the door wider to invite them in.

_Thank Agni._

“Thank you so much, ma’am, I-“

“Nonsense.” The woman led them in, kicking her shoes off to indicate that they should do the same. “What’s happening to the Earth Nationals in this area is shameful. If I can do anything to help, I’ll do it.”

“Are you-“

“No, I’m Fire National, but I’ve got Earth Kingdom in my family,” the woman explained. “Name’s Emi, by the way. My little brother married an Earth Kingdom girl and after seeing what they had to face during the war…” Emi shook her head. “It was a disgrace. The Earth Nationals I know are fine, upright people, and even if they weren’t, they’ve been here for ages. Who are we to say they shouldn’t be?” she shrugged. “So, you’re an aid worker.”

_Does she ever stop talking?_ “I am,” she said. “I’m half-Earth National and half-Fire National, so I wanted to help out.” _Not exactly true._ “It’s been…eye-opening.”

“I’m not even surprised that they’re burning Kanashimi after all the trouble they’ve been causing our Earth Nationals,” Emi said disapprovingly. “I’m glad you and these children got out.”

“Not everyone who came to help will, though,” she said bitterly.

“No, sadly,” Emi agreed. “That’s how it always is when you’re standing up for the underdog. My brother was some fancy government official and when he and his wife tried to speak up on behalf of the people Ozai’s armies were trodding underfoot, they killed him.” Emi’s eyes burned with anger now. She’d directed them to a dimly-lit kitchen and gestured for them to sit down as she put a pot of tea on.

“That’s awful,” Yangchen agreed. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It was. He had a daughter, too. Orphaned.” Emi practically spat the last word. “And all because her parents dared to have an ounce of decency.”

The children, who hadn’t said a word since they arrived, blanched at this.

“What happened to her?” Yangchen asked, as much to distract herself as anything else.

“She disappeared a few years later,” Emi said. “She’d gone to live with her grandparents but she ran away and no one ever heard from her again. It was a shame – smart kid.”

_Wait, why does this sound…_

“What was this girl’s name?” Yangchen asked, suddenly on edge. _This can’t be…_

“I can’t remember but I think it started with an ‘H.’ Hana, maybe?”

“Hina?”

Emi turned to Yangchen so quickly that she nearly pulled the kettle off of the stove. “Yes, it was Hina,” she said, shock coloring her face paper-white. “How did you guess that?” Emi’s eyes widened. “Do you know her?”

“I should hope so.” Yangchen couldn’t help but smile despite the thousand currently compelling reasons not to. “She’s my mother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Emi twist was contrived as all heck, but I COULD NOT RESIST. Did you think that line about Hina having family in the area was a throwaway? Haha, NOPE.   
> Also, DIRTBOY AND WATERGIRL SUPREMACY.
> 
> Next up: more on that Emi twist, plus Haang reunion and our last pre-wedding moments!


	11. Facing the Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yangchen learns more about her long-lost aunt. On the eve of Kya and Hyun's wedding, Kya confronts her feelings. Katara and Sokka discuss parenting, and Aang and Hina reunite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This...is SUCH a mess, but I needed to get something out. I'm sorry, guys, but this has been one of the worst days I've in a while for reasons that are heavily related to a lot of the themes of this story, so I'm not really in a great place to be writing this at all but I am anyway because I Have Issues...
> 
> Help.
> 
> Also, a lot of people will probably take offense at the way I write Katara and Zuko here. I know. If that’s the case, PLEASE be gentle, because I am having an awful time with my parents right now and Kya’s kind of my projection character. The last thing I need after being given a “wake up, your parents are lowkey awful!” speech that shook my entire world on its axis is to be pilloried for the way I chose to write this chapter. I really can’t separate my own feelings from Kya’s sometimes, and I’ve been getting some comments on the OOC-ness of this, which is fair, but this is one instance in which it’s personal and I really do not need that. So please, PLEASE do not rag on their parenting here...please. That would not be great for me right now.

Emi could do nothing but stare at Yangchen for a good three minutes, suspended in a silence broken only by the sound of Yangchen’s knife slicing through the mango and then the children’s contented sighs as they ate each piece.

“You…” she sputtered, finally, when she’d gathered herself somewhat. “ _You’re_ my great-niece?”

“You said you were Hina’s father’s sister, right?” Yangchen asked, trying to appear unfazed when she was anything but. “That would make me your great-niece, yes.”

Slowly, Emi’s face broke into a smile. “She made it,” she murmured. “I thought…”

“She joined a resistance movement after she ran away,” Yangchen told her. “The Liberation League. She was good at it, so I guess they made her their leader while she was still super young, kind of a big deal. Anyways, after the war, when the Fire Lord had to hire new officials to replace the old ones who were loyal to his father, she was recommended to head up the intelligence department. She’s still there now.” Yangchen couldn’t entirely keep the pride from her voice. “Surprised you’ve never heard of a Spymistress Oyama.”

Emi braced herself with one hand against the counter behind her. “You’re telling me that the niece I thought was dead for forty years is the _Spymistress of the Fire Nation?”_

“And Fire Lord Zuko’s most trusted advisor,” Yangchen replied, enjoying the shock on her great-aunt’s face a little too much.

“And…a mother, apparently?” Emi looked Yangchen up and down. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it. You look so much like her.”

“You spent a lot of time with my mom, I take it?”

“No, but I do remember that she took after her father, and I remember his face,” Emi said, taking the teapot off the stove. “She had his face, but she got the green eyes from her mother. Yuna, was it? Never did get to know her well, but she had…spirit.”

“I don’t know.” Yangchen looked down at her lap. “I never met her.”

“I know that she and Hina were close. Masaki always wrote me about that – made him happy, seeing his daughter take after her mother,” Emi recalled fondly.

“Do you still have those letters?” Yangchen asked. She’d never known much about her grandparents, but she knew how much her mother had admired them, and she wished she did.

“Of course I do,” Emi said. “They’re all I have left of my brother.”

“Did he talk about my mom a lot?”

“Oh, always.” The sparkle in Emi’s eyes was bittersweet but brilliant nonetheless. “He was so proud of that girl. It was all ‘my Hina’s so much smarter than I ever was at her age’ and ‘Hina’s getting so tall’ and ‘Hina has such a bright future.’ I think he’d like to know that she did.”

“She’s basically doing what he did, only under a better Fire Lord,” Yangchen replied.

“You know Lord Zuko, I take it?” Emi asked.

“Lord Zuko?” _Oh, she has no idea._ “Yeah, we grew up with his kids.”

“We?” Emi’s eyes lit up. “I have more great-nieces?”

  
“Yeah, I have an older sister and a younger brother,” Yangchen said. “Wait, actually, my sister just had a baby, so you also have a…great-great nephew?”

“Oh, that makes me feel so old,” Emi groaned. 

“There’s kind of a funny story there, actually.” Yangchen glanced up at her great-aunt, gauging her interest and privately hoping she’d have enough to keep her going. It was a nice distraction, telling stories she knew so well to a rapt audience of one.

“Oh?” Emi took a seat. “Do tell.”

“So we grew up with the Fire Lord’s kids, right?” she began. “So my older sister, Yuna, was super close to the middle kid, Ryuji, growing up. They fell _stupidly_ in love when they were teenagers, went off to university together in Ba Sing Se, and then decided they wanted to get married, but his parents – the Fire Lord and Lady, remember? – were, like, ‘no, that’s not a good idea, she has to revive the Air Nomads,’ so they just…eloped.”

“I’m sorry, the _Air Nomads?”_ Emi’s eyes widened. “The…the _Air Nomads?”_

“Oh, yeah, Yuna’s an airbender. Anyway-“

“How is that even possible? The airbenders were all wiped out-“

“Except for one,” Yangchen said. “Well, two, now, since Yuna was born.”

“Wait.” Emi blinked a few times as if to clear her vision. “Are you implying that your father…your father is-“

“The Avatar?” Yangchen grinned. “Yeah, sorry, must’ve forgotten to mention that.”

“Wait, so let me get this all straight, since I’m not entirely sure that you aren’t pulling my leg,” Emi said, eyes narrowed. “You’re saying that the niece I thought was dead became Spymistress of the Fire Nation, _married the Avatar,_ and…your in-laws are all members of the Fire Nation royal family?”

“You probably won’t believe me, but yes, that is, in fact, all correct. I-“

Yangchen was interrupted by another knock at the door and her hand flew instinctively to the hilt of her dagger while Emi went to get it. Kimi and Tomo, hands and faces sticky with mango juice, had crawled underneath the table and promptly fallen asleep, neither roused by the knock at the door.

“Miss, I’m so sorry to bother you, but-“

Yangchen recognized the voice in the doorway in seconds. “Dad?” she called from the kitchen, breaking into a run down the short hallway.

“Yangchen?” Aang stepped over the doorway in time to catch his daughter as she flung herself into his arms, barely noticing that his clothes were soaked through.

“How did you find me so fast?” she asked, breathing hard for no reason at all. He tightened his arms around her.

“I saw you run this way and there aren’t too many houses in this part of town, so it wasn’t too bad,” he told her. “Didn’t take long to put the fires out once the rain started, even though there’d already been a lot of damage done to the exteriors of buildings and-“

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Yangchen choked out.

“So this is my long-lost niece’s husband, hm?” Emi crossed her arms but her expression was more curious than annoyed.

“I’m sorry?” Aang let go of Yangchen and turned to face Emi. “I’m afraid you have the wrong-“

“No, actually, she doesn’t,” Yangchen cut in. “Dad, this is great-aunt Emi. Great-aunt Emi, this is my dad-“

“Well, I’ll be,” Emi muttered. “I really did think she was pulling one over on me…”

* * *

“I’m worried about Kya.”

Izumi didn’t bother to preface her entrance to her father’s study with a proper greeting. She simply stormed in, Hideo following close behind (Zuko raised his eyebrows at that – moral support?), and plunked herself down in an extra armchair without much ceremony.

“We all are, Izumi,” Zuko replied evenly, unsure what else to say. “Did she say something to you?”

“No, but you can see it all over her face,” Izumi said. “She’s a _mess,_ Dad. She did this because she felt like she had to prove herself and now she’s regretting it. It’s obvious.”

“Kya, she did it so you could be with-“

“No, she didn’t, Lord Zuko,” Hideo cut in. He’d been so shy that he would barely address Zuko or Katara when he’d begun seeing Izumi, but he’d absorbed a little bit of his girlfriend’s bold self-assurance in the time being, and Zuko was glad to see it. “Um. Izumi and I had a chance to talk to her, and she…feels like the problem child.”

“Think about it, Dad,” Izumi cut in. “We all chastised her so often for being…a little unsympathetic when she was younger that now she thinks we all think she’s a sociopath. No wonder she made a decision that was going to make her miserable – she already _was,_ but at least this way she’d be miserable because she did something” – Izumi made quotations around the words with her fingers – “right.”

“I knew she felt that way, and I _tried_ to-“

“Whatever you tried didn’t work, Dad,” Izumi said softly. “We all failed her. We can’t run from that anymore.” She sighed, relaxing against the back of her chair. “Maybe it’s too late to call off the wedding, but…we can try to make amends with her.”

“I’m sorry, Izumi. I should’ve-“

“Dad, it’s not me you need to be apologizing to. I know you love Kya, but we hurt her, and if we don’t try to fix that now, she’s going to be miserable for _years.”_

* * *

“Sometimes I wish I resented you.”

Kya raised her face, still dripping wet from the water she’d splashed on it in an attempt to clear out the blotchy redness around her eyes, to the mirror. Arms planted wide on each side of the vanity, hair hanging in a damp curtain around her face, she looked anything but the picture of composed coolness she’d so long wished she could be.

It was fitting, she thought, that she face the next chapter of her life this way: brought as low outside as she’d felt inside all her life.

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t care,” she said, meeting her own eyes in the mirror. “It would be so much _easier_ if I didn’t care what you all thought of me. But I _do._ Is it bad that I still care? Is it bad that I hate myself for it sometimes?” Kya’s nose wrinkled as it always did when she was about to cry. “Agni, I’m so _pathetic._ Why am I wasting my time when it’s obvious that it’s never going to be enough for you?”

She bend the water from her hair with a flick of her wrist, then the damp spots from her robe. Rubbing at her face with a towel only made it redder, but she didn’t particularly care as she shut the bathroom door and stumbled over to her bed, lying back against the pillows and hugging one to her chest.

  
“Agni, I’m so pathetic,” she repeated, clutching the pillow like a lifeline. “I can’t even confront my own _family.”_ A prick in the back of her throat told her that tears were preparing to break free of the floodgates once more. “I do everything I can to make them proud and nothing works and I can’t even find the courage to tell them how mad that makes me? What kind of spineless…” she trailed off. “Ugh. Stupid.” She buried her face in the pillow.

She had nothing to say, so she rolled onto her stomach, still clutching her pillow. It caught her tears, muffled her gasps for breath, and for that she was grateful now. Kya wanted to be ashamed of herself, twenty-five and crying like a child on the eve of her wedding, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Hard as she tried to convince herself that disgust and anger were all she felt, she knew down in her core that it was sadness she was grappling with – the dark, sluggish, all-consuming sadness that made her long for light, for warmth.

Maybe, in another life, she would’ve been happy this night. Maybe she would’ve gone to her closet just to brush her fingers over the fine blue-dyed sealskin of her wedding attire, wondered about the speeches her loved ones would give at the ceremony. Maybe she would’ve gone to bed with the warmth of anticipation building within her, knowing she wouldn’t drift off alone the next night.

But in this life, the cards she’d been dealt had her crying into a pillow, her cheeks flushing with something between rage and sadness at the realization that all she wanted right now was a pair of warm, strong arms around her, and that when she pictured those arms, the only ones her mind would conjure up were Hyun’s.

She had tried to resent him, truly tried. She’d told herself that he annoyed her, that he was too dim to provide good company, that he was repulsive simply for having been forced upon her – but those arguments had never won. She’d see his broad, handsome face, his built arms, his lopsided smile, and no resistance Kya possessed would hold out for long. She’d hear the kindness and concern in his voice and the way he’d still consent to be toyed with – and to mess with her right back – in spite of his sweet nature. She’d feel his arms hemming her in and her heart would turn nervously.

Kya was not lovable, she knew, nor did she know how to love; what she felt for Hyun could not possibly be anything so earth-shattering. Neutrality, she told herself: that was all she felt when she thought of the man she was to go to bed with tomorrow night (in theory; she had every intention to flout that tradition). She didn’t want him, certainly didn’t _need_ him. The last thing Kya needed was another person who was supposed to care for her trying to tell her that she was loved when she knew that she wasn’t.

But when she closed her eyes, wishing she could will the world away, all Kya saw was herself in blue and cream, standing before throngs of people, and Hyun’s lips on hers.

* * *

“I just don’t know what to do, Sokka.” Katara leaned back against the lip of the fountain, her expression uncharacteristically helpless. “I did everything I could to make her feel cared-for and she still feels like it’s her against the world and I…I just…”

“Parenting, amirite?” Sokka sighed, patting his sister’s shoulder. “When the twins were her age-“

“Sokka, I swear, if this is that tigerseal story again, I’m going to throw you in the fountain.”

Sokka deflated. “But it’s _good.”_

“It may be, but I’m trying to figure out how I tried so hard to be a good parent only to end up with a daughter who’s willing to throw her life away like this because she thinks we don’t love her, so now is _really_ not the time.”

“Right. Sorry.” ‘Serious,’ even now, was not Sokka’s default state. “You’ve talked to her, right?”

“Repeatedly, but I’m pretty sure that talking isn’t going to fix this.” She shrugged. “Talking hasn’t done anything so far.”

“Then keep trying,” Sokka told her. “She probably feels like she’s stuck in Izumi’s shadow. You need to be the one to let her know she’s not.”

“I’ve tried, Sokka. I just…haven’t gotten through to her.”

  
“She’s been feeling like this for years, Katara. Of course she needs time.”

“When did you go and get all wise?” Katara teased, a bitterweet smile breaking up the heaviness on her face. She elbowed her brother’s side for old times’ sake.

“Managing Taktik’s teenage crushes was a nightmare. If I didn’t, I probably would have lost my mind.” Sokka shrugged. “Kids are stubborn. You can’t just give it one shot and call it a day.”

“I haven’t. I just…feel like such a _failure,”_ Katara admitted. “I caused her so much pain without ever meaning to and…now I can’t undo it. She’ll never believe me when I tell her that I’ve never wanted anything more than for her to find her place in the world.”

“Well, all parents mess their kids up somehow, right?” Sokka asked. “It’s inevitable. You can try everything possible to be a good parent and you’re still gonna do things that hurt your kid, just like your kid’s going to do things that hurt you. We’re people, and people kinda suck. It’s unavoidable.”

“I’m still always going to be mad at myself for it.” Katara played with the hem of her purple hanfu. “She’s so much like me, Sokka. I wanted…I guess I just wanted to give her the chance to be who I never could.”

“Um, Katara, you’re the ruler of a country. I’m not sure what you think you missed out on.”

“A stable childhood,” she said flatly. “I wanted her to grow up secure and loved and…unafraid, I guess. Like we didn’t.” Now Katara’s voice was softer, sadder. “I wanted her to be happy, because I wasn’t. And now…look where she’s ended up.”

“It’s really not fair, is it?” Sokka sighed. “We never got that chance and now we’re finding that we don’t know how to make sure our kids get it, either.”

“Okay, you’re _never_ this philosophical. What gives?”

“What are you talking about? I am a _fount_ of wisdom!”

“Sokka.” Katara crossed her arms. “Need I remind you of the cactus juice incident?”

“I was _sixteen,_ Katara.”

“No, not that one. The _other-“_

“Which- _oh.”_ Sokka grimaced. “Okay, so maybe I wasn’t exactly…in control of myself…”

“I believe you made a series of increasingly terrible puns about his predecessor to the new head of the Dai Li.” Katara smirked. “You’re lucky you hadn’t been installed as chieftain yet. Imagine the diplomatic scandal _that_ would’ve caused.”

“Okay, so maybe I’ve had my moments, but _still.”_

“Hey, at least you didn’t give your daughter a complex.”

“I probably would have, if I _had_ a daughter,” Sokka replied, thinking himself rather diplomatic until his sister smacked him. “Oh, and I had another thought. Have you talked to her fiancé about this?”

“No, why would I?” Katara raised her eyebrows. “She’d probably hate that.”

“Well, he’s going to marry her, so…I don’t know, threaten his life if he doesn’t treat her like a princess?”

“Trust me, Sokka, we’ve already done that. Zuko, mostly, because apparently he and Hyun are buddies now-“

“Now, why does that not surprise me?” Sokka asked, a little too amused.

“Awkward hopeless romantics with one brain cell apiece, both far too handsome for their own good?” Katara smirked. “Please, Sokka. Of course he loves the kid.”

“That…does make sense.”

“Yeah. Anyway. Zuko and I have talked to him, Sakari scared the poor thing within an inch of his life, Ryuji had a talk with him that couldn’t have _not_ been petrifyingly awkward…I think he gets the point.” Katara paused. “And I’m pretty sure he’s in love with her, so I’m not worried.”

“Oh, he definitely is. I’m pretty sure the only person who hasn’t noticed is Zuko.”

“And really, what would you expect?”

* * *

“Hina?”

Face buried in paperwork, Hina looked up when she heard Zuko call her from the doorway to her study. “Yes?” she asked tightly, trying and failing not to let the nervousness that hadn’t been leaving her alone lately slip through the cracks.

“They’re back,” he said, and she needed no context or explanation to throw herself from her chair with such force that it nearly toppled before she began to run. She ignored the sideways glances of the people she passed as she ran – because she’d learned long ago that appearing to be dignified was nowhere near worthwhile at times like this – and found herself on the palace steps in minutes, panting but so relieved she could barely think. “Aang!” she called, hoping he’d hear her as she began to run down the stairs, taking them two at a time as she always did. He looked up from the luggage he was unloading when he heard her voice, and when she reached him in the courtyard, she was met with waiting arms.

“I told you I’d come back,” he murmured as Hina held on tight. He rested his chin atop her head, and all the stiffness of stress in her muscles went slack, leaving her practically limp in his arms.

“I was so worried,” Hina told him, nuzzling her cheek against his tunic. It smelled of smoke. “I got a messenger hawk about the village that burned and I was afraid it was-“

“I made it, didn’t I?” he kissed the crown of her head. “And in time for the wedding!”

“You missed the reunion, though,” Hina replied, letting him go. “I mean, it was mostly just everyone fawning over the baby, but still. They missed you.” She paused to glance around, wondering how she’d missed the arrival of what seemed like their entire extended family in the courtyard; right now, Yangchen and Yuna were deep in conversation, Ryuji off to the side with Sora in his arms. “She seems excited.”

“Well, she has…reason to be.” Aang smiled. “Yangchen, have you told your mother-“

“We found your aunt Emi!” Yangchen crowed, enthusiastically if rather unceremoniously. Sora began to cry at the sudden noise and she winced, muttering something about how the baby _never_ did that to his other aunts.

“You… _what?”_

“Yeah, it’s…kind of a long story.” Yangchen began to climb the steps. “You have anything on the agenda?”

“Nothing so earth-shattering as a long-lost relative,” Hina said, still in a state of minor shock. “You… _actually_ found my aunt?”

“The one and only,” Yangchen said as they climbed, and she began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tarkik is an Inuit name that means "moon" because I'm basic like that.


	12. To Your Union, and the Hope that You Provide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyun and Kya's wedding day (and night), as told in prose vignettes through the eyes of every major character.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the title is a Hamilton lyric, shhhh. Also, I'm playing with style here since no one is reading this and it's not a big deal if I don't maintain a consistent style if I'm just writing it for me and five people who don't care about that. So there's no dialogue in these (for the most part). 
> 
> Was this a shameless way of working in something to do for all of my eight million characters? Definitely.

**_Early Morning_ **

**_Kya & Hyun’s Wedding Day_ **

Katara rested her head on her husband’s shoulder where he stood in front of the mirror and together, they closed their eyes.

They were in their finery today, he in floor-length robes and she in a hanfu, its red bodice giving way to deep blue satin beneath a golden sash. She wordlessly adjusted Zuko’s hairpiece, letting her hands linger there for a moment after she finished, and he met her eyes in the mirror. They were wide and sad and as vulnerable as they were when the two had met, and she was sure hers were the same. Wordlessly, she held him, and he took her hands. Katara leaned into him and he bowed his head, hair falling in a curtain of grey-streaked ebony in front of his face; neither needed words to tell explain why.

They’d sworn this wouldn’t happen. The night Katara had told Zuko that she was expecting Izumi, they’d had the conversation that now played out in their eyes: swearing they’d never let their children – and they’d known even then that the child she carried then would not be the last – grow up with backs bent under the weight of tragedy.

They hadn’t, at least. There had been no war to rend their early years, no rivalry to tear them apart. Their children loved each other, though they bickered as all siblings did. They had loved their children fiercely, done everything they could to secure them futures when none of their decisions could ever be made solely on the merit of personal choice. They’d seen them all to adulthood intact and dearly loved. They’d done all they could with the hurts that haunted them and the way they had to balance their children’s needs with those of their nations.

  
But here, both knew that this wedding was perhaps their greatest failing.

Kya had always been the hardest of their children to reason with, the most stubborn and tempestuous and wild. She was an extraordinarily gifted bender, a fiercely loyal sister, and as passionate and convicted as her mother; her older sister shone, but Kya _burned._ She burned too hot and too bright for comfort sometimes, occasionally bringing pain and not just light to those her flames touched, and no one had been innocent of shying away from the brilliant heat of her pain or anger or even excitement. But the light she gave had grown dimmer with every time that her loved ones ducked for cover, and she’d grown sad and listless and, now, so disconsolate that she’d have done anything to prove that she could temper the flame within, bring others to hope and not fear.

  
Zuko had always known that fire was life as much as it was destruction, but still, he’d been afraid. He’d feared the taint of his bloodline and feared what she was capable of and he was ashamed of the way he saw the faintest echoes of his own sister in her, ashamed of the fear he felt when he thought of what she could do if she tried.

Katara, too, had been the girl brushed off as uncontrollable once. Years as Fire Lady had tamped down her temper, though, and though she’d speak out at every turn and fight as fiercely as she always had if given just cause, Katara knew that the fierce conviction her daughter felt would bring her only pain. She’d never wish to tame Kya the way life had tried to tame her; she’d not known what to do, how to choose between the pain of seeing the world try to put out her daughter’s fire and the pain of knowing she’d been the one to do it for her.

Zuko and Katara loved their daughter. They’d sworn they’d never hurt her the way they’d been hurt. They’d never meant to let this happen.

But they’d failed her and now they would have to watch her start a life with the consequence of that failure.

* * *

**_Slightly Earlier Morning_ **

**_Kya & Hyun’s Wedding Day_ **

Hina set down her rag and picked up the candle she’d set beside her, holding a fan up to the light to check for dust, scuffs, anything that could’ve marred their surface even after her careful examination. It was clean; she took the other in her hands and rubbed the soft cloth in slow, deliberate circles across its gold surface, restoring the sheen that months of resting in a box had worn away.

Polishing her mother’s fans had always felt something close to sacred to Hina. They’d been the first Yuna Oyama’s first line of defense; they were Hina Oyama’s most prized possessions; one day they’d belong to their owners’ namesake, a reminder of a long-lost legacy. Hina had grown up in awe of her mother, a former Kyoshi Warrior, and she’d wanted more than anything to be like her one day; it had been part of why she’d taken this job though she’d been reluctant to serve the predecessor of the man who’d killed her parents.

In a way, Yuna Oyama (the original) had led her to make the best decision of her life.

So she kept the fans in better condition than her mother ever had. _I’ve kept them all these years,_ Hina said with every stroke of her cloth. _I miss you. I love you. I hope you’d be proud of me._

Sometimes, in her mind, she’d say other things, too. _I’m a grandmother, Mama,_ she thought as she ran her rag along the grip of the right fan. _Isn’t that crazy? I’m a little young for it, but here we are._ She moved along to the slats of the fan, polishing each individually. _One of the Princesses is getting married later today. I should be in bed, but I needed to clear my head._ She flipped the fan, polishing its other side. _It makes me wish I’d been able to see my Yuna’s wedding. She ran off and took my hopes of ever seeing my kids get married with her._ Though she’d been keeping her thoughts silent, Hina laughed aloud at that, a hollow sound. _I doubt Yangchen’s the marrying type, and Gyatso…_ she grimaced. _Gyatso is a little…stuck on an unattainable girl right now, so who knows what’ll happen there. Anyways._

She finished and set the fan back in the padded box alongside its partner, giving each one last brush-over with her rag.

_I miss you,_ she thought as she closed the box. _I hope you’d be proud if you could see me now._

* * *

**_Midday_ **

**_Kya & Hyun’s Wedding Day _ **

****

Yangchen shifted uncomfortably as the tsungi horn signaled the entrance of the bride, and she suspected it had little to do with the stiff chair she was sitting in. She craned her neck to catch a glimpse of her childhood friend, radiant in blue and cream, as she and her fiancé approached the altar arm-in-arm. As she passed, Yangchen caught Kya’s eye, and her stomach sank.

Hanging onto Hyun’s arm, she looked as trapped and miserable as a caged animal.

_She deserves so much better than this,_ Yangchen thought, fist clenching at her side. It was so many kinds of unfair, seeing someone as passionate and outspoken as Kya so beaten-down; she wondered, briefly, why she’d consented to reduce herself this way, giving the rest of her life to a man she didn’t know to keep her sister happy. But then, Yangchen didn’t really need to wonder at all.

She knew how it felt to be the unmanageable younger sister of the most perfect daughter on the face of the planet, and as she glanced over to Yuna – radiant in yellow even mere weeks after giving birth, smiling down at her son in her arms with her head resting, weary but content, on her husband’s shoulder – her green hanfu felt too tight, the room too hot, and the chairs too close together. She nearly elbowed her brother, seated beside her, to get him to give her more space, just to distract herself.

Of course she knew why Kya would’ve chosen this, looking to her sister. Izumi and Yuna were _ideal daughters,_ the kind who deserved good things and people falling at their feet to make life just a little bit easier for women whose nations’ fates rested on their shoulder. Kya and Yangchen were backups.

Beloved, perhaps, but backups, and _problem children,_ and the ones who’d be asked to make sacrifices when they needed to be made.

Though Yangchen Oyama was not the praying type, she gritted her teeth and prayed to every spirit who might be listening that Hyun would prove himself to be worthy of the woman who’d so nobly agreed to have him.

* * *

Hyun could barely look at his bride on the way to the altar.

Kya was _radiant_ today, the cream and blue of her gown lovely against her dark skin in the dimness of the shrine. Tendrils of her hair fell in loose waves about her face, round and soft and yet all hard edges somehow, while the rest was braided and wound around her head and ornamented with so many hairpieces that it had to have been heavy to carry around all day. Her wide, sad blue eyes bore a hole in his heart.

He could barely look at her even when her hand was tied to his, and they repeated their vows with all of the hopeless blandness of two frigate-gulls crying out on the open sea with not a sailor or ship in sight to hear them. All he knew was the cool of her soft, smooth hands in his warm, calloused ones, and in one terrifying moment he realized that her hands fit into his as if they’d been meant to be there all along. When the Fire Sage snapped the cord connecting their wrists and he announced that they two could kiss, though, Hyun had no choice but to look up at Kya, his heart racing.

_Are you okay with this?_ His expression seemed to ask, for he knew it was customary but would not go ahead without her assent. She nodded, a tiny, reluctant thing, and he nodded in reply, unsure what else to do. It was slow, that moment, as if time were being dragged through a lake of molasses for the ten seconds before Hyun reached out to cup her cheeks.

He wanted to memorize every instant of time before his lips met hers and it would all be over; he knew she would not kiss him again, though they were married now. He would savor this kiss, he would make it last the span of their years together. He would ask her for nothing, after today, for his wife was a lost and shattered thing, she said, who’d made it all too clear that he would never be the one to reassemble those broken parts. He would keep the peace. He would keep his word.

(He would not pine for her.)

So Hyun set his hands gently upon her cheeks, and he leaned in, letting his eyes flutter shut as he pressed her lips to hers.

There was not much to the kiss, close-lipped and fast and perfunctory, but her arms found their way around his waist, and it would have to be enough for Hyun.

(It would never, ever be enough, and all it did was seal his fate.

He could no longer deny, when she broke the kiss and they turned to the crowd, that perhaps he had been falling for her all along.)

* * *

**_Late Afternoon_ **

**_Reception_ **

“Dance with me,” he’d said.

Yuna had protested, of course. She’d been tired – it was practically a personality trait, now – and she hadn’t wanted to get up, but the hopeful light in her husband’s eyes had been too much to resist. So she’d handed Sora off to one of his _many_ doting aunts and uncles (they’d left him with Great-Aunt Suki, knowing he’d be making the rounds as guest after guest fawned over him), and followed Ryuji onto the floor, and now she swayed in his arms and she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

She’d forgotten how to be Yuna Oyama, in all the weeks that she’d been Sora’s mother. She’d forgotten how to be the sister who’d stay up late and gossip about her long-lost great-aunt with Yangchen, the daughter who’d meditate with her father as often as they both could, the friend who’d comfort a crying Izumi the night before her sister’s wedding, the airbending Master who wrote the Air Acolyte they’d left in charge of the Northern Air Temple to make sure all was well, the wife who’d have danced with Ryuji until the sun came up in younger days.

But she _was_ all those things and, as uneasy as she felt leaving Sora with her rambunctious extended family, she knew there would be someone to keep things under control. So she rested her head against Ryuji’s chest and forgot where she was for a while.

“I’m so lucky it was you,” Ryuji murmured after a few moments, and Yuna tipped her chin up to look at him.

“We were always going to make it work,” she said, smiling up at him.

He glanced across the floor at his sister, flushed and flustered and a little terrified while dancing with Hyun. “Hopefully they will too.”

Yuna pressed her palm to Ryuji’s chest. “Hopefully,” she said as the song ended. He did not let her go, and she kissed him, using the expansive sleeves of her hanfu to conceal their faces from prying eyes. She threw another glance over at her sister-in-law after they parted.

“I think they will.”

* * *

**_Early Evening_ **

**_Reception_ **

****

Gyatso hated weddings.

There was something so off-putting about them, though whether it was the disconcerting cheer people always inexplicably felt, or the unerring tendency of the guests to drink themselves into a stupor, or the _worldliness_ of it all. Regardless of the cause, he hated weddings.

And he especially hated them now, knowing that the next wedding he attended would be Izumi’s.

She’d been all he could think about as the ceremony wore on: her hand clasped in his, their wrists bound. He’d imagined that he was Hyun and Kya, Izumi, that the gentle hands resting against her cheeks were his own. He’d imagined the two of them opening the floor with the first dance, keeping time with the music in each other’s arms-

He’d chastised himself, of course, for being so base, but here he was anyways, leaning against the railing of a deserted balcony with a half-empty bottle and half a dozen discarded, empty cups stained purple by mulberry wine scattered about his feet.

_I need to get over myself,_ he thought.

_I can’t,_ he thought a little bit harder.

The second thought won and he poured himself another glass.

* * *

**_Evening_ **

**_Reception_ **

“That’ll be us soon.”

Hideo’s words had been whispered as Kya stood at the alter and he’d probably thought she’d forget them, but she couldn’t. They bounced around in her mind like hailstones, and her stomach twinged with guilt as she realized that, if not for Kya’s choice, it would be _her_ up on that alter, her wrist bound to the Earth Prince’s. At the time, she’d simply squeezed his hand and tried to enjoy the ceremony and the company of old friends she hadn’t seen in years. But now, as they sat for dinner and the clinking of silverware filled the banquet hall, Izumi couldn’t help but think too much.

In a year’s time, she would be married to the man she loved, and her sister would still be bound to a near-total stranger.

And as much as she liked Hyun – as much as she knew Hyun liked and respected her sister – it was never going to sit well with her that Kya would never have that chance.

* * *

**_Late Night_ **

**_After the Reception_ **

****

The door latched behind them, and Hyun flinched.

“It’s, uh, customary.” Kya blushed, backed up against the door and not meeting Hyun’s eyes.

“It is?” Hyun raised his eyebrows. “Everyone following you to your room like that?”

“It’s…supposed to be.” Kya wrung her hands as she spoke. “They lock us in. To, um, encourage the production of heirs. But we don’t need them, so…”

“Just a tradition, then?” Hyun asked.

Kya nodded. “I can go, though. Our rooms are adjacent, so…there’s a door. I can get through without them seeing me.”

This was not exactly how Hyun had imagined his wedding night, but he wasn’t about to point that out when Kya was so obviously uncomfortable. “Okay,” he said. “Um…goodnight, then.”

Kya finally met his eyes, and she froze in place.

That _couldn’t_ be it – “goodnight” without a single look, touch, or tender word passing between them. It should’ve been everything she wanted, this surprising willingness to let go and leave her alone. But she realized, standing and staring at her husband, that alone was the _last_ thing she wanted to be. Kya had felt alone her entire life. She’d been the one on the outside, craving touch, craving approval and love and-

Well, craving the way Hyun was looking at her right now.

She’d made no move to leave, and she realized in a split second that the last place she wanted to be was in her bedroom, lying against the same sheets she’d slept in since she was a child, alone with her thoughts. She needed to be distracted tonight, to hide from a miserable future if only for a few hours.

“Hyun,” she said, before she could stop herself.

He looked up at her, his face bright with the realization that she hadn’t left though she’d said she would. “Yes, Kya?”

She walked to him and, biting back the logical voice in her head telling her not to give in. She would not listen, and she pressed her palm to his chest, flushed and nervous and sure of nothing except the fact that she would _not_ be lonely on her wedding night.

“Hyun,” she said, her voice catching in her throat, “I want you to kiss me.”

“Wha… _what?”_ he sputtered. “I thought you…I…”

“Oh, do you not want to?” Kya’s eyes dropped to the floor. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overstep.”

“No, no, it isn’t that.” Hyun pressed his hand over hers. “Uh...it’s just, um. _Why?”_

“Um, when we kissed earlier…” Kya shrugged helplessly. “It…was nice. I wanted to know what it would be like if we didn’t have an audience.”

“Are you sure, Kya?” Hyun asked again. “You’re not messing with me?”

“No, I’m not.” She swallowed hard. “So I want you to kiss me.”

“Okay,” he said, a little out-of-breath. “Okay.”

He dropped her hand, then, cupping her cheeks as he had during the ceremony. She leaned in, her nose bumping his – he laughed, gentle but mirthful – and her lips met his.

He was gentle, at first, as if he still wasn’t sure that she’d been serious. His lips were warm and soft and _right_ against hers but they were still shy, hesitant, and Kya had no interest in gentleness right now. Tenderness now would all but break her; she wanted to forget, and she tugged him closer, her hands tangling in his hair. She wasn’t sure if the strangled noise that rose in her throat at her touch was a good thing, but she figured by the way he kissed her – firmer now, more insistent – that it probably was. She laced her hands around his neck and he placed his about her waist, as firm as they’d been when he’d first embraced her. She couldn’t help but cuddle closer into the warmth of his touch, and she rested her forehead against his when they pulled back for air, thoroughly distracted.

“Was that good?” Hyun asked shyly, his hands lightly resting against her hips.

“Again,” Kya said breathlessly, and he needed no encouragement.

“Again?” he asked, moments later, out of breath.

“Please don’t stop,” she told him, and he complied.

For once in her life, she would _not_ be alone.

* * *

**_Early Morning_ **

**_Day After_ **

****

The sun was hours away from rising when Kya awoke, sweating under the heat of satin bedclothes. She stretched, grimacing at the soreness in her stomach. _I must’ve slept on it weird,_ she thought, a little annoyed, until her elbow collided with something warm and solid-

_Oh._

_Oh no._

It didn’t take more than a second for her to remember why and suddenly her face felt as hot as the rest of her body. Panic bloomed in her stomach and she sat up so abruptly that she was amazed that Hyun didn’t wake.

_I can’t believe I_ did _that._

_I did_ that.

_Why did I_ do _that?_

Suddenly she felt foolish, remembering the way she’d clung to him, knowing it was all because she couldn’t bear to be alone. She couldn’t look at Hyun, peaceful and content beside her, and without a moment’s hesitation, she stood, slipped her discarded chemise over her head, and broke into a run, latching the door connecting their chambers behind her.

She didn’t sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: sometimes I listen to "I'll Make Love to You" by Boyz II Men on repeat while writing kiss scenes like the one at the end of this chapter. 
> 
> I hate myself too.


	13. Free-Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kya deals with the fallout of her wedding night; Queen Lian is uncooperative; much is discussed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It pains me to keep hurting this poor himbo like this, but here's the "Hyun in emotional pain" chapter. GAAAH, I KNOW. I HATE ME TOO. 
> 
> Also, literally every fiber of my being wants to write a prequel about Hina's time with the Liberation League, and I've already made her a whole team and everything, but I do not need any more WIPs. And also no one would read it. Whoops.

“Kya? You okay in there?”

Kya jolted from hour-old sleep, rubbing her eyes as she tried to sit and her whole body groaned in protest. She’d fallen asleep – barely – coiled around a pillow, her arm pinned under her at an awkward angle, and the last thing she’d wanted was to be jarred from her sleep by a knock at her door.

  
“Fine,” she said groggily, barely awake enough to register who was there or why he sounded so concerned. Automatically, she got the door.

Hyun waited on the other side when she opened it, his chest still bare, his hair still rumpled, and his expression sincerely worried.

“Uh.” Kya’s cheeks heated. “Um.”

Just the sight of her, even as incapable as she apparently was of forming coherent sentences, had Hyun smiling, and his whole face – whole _being,_ really – lit up as he took her in, wrinkled chemise and matted curls and under-eye bags and all.

“Morning!” he said brightly, stepping forwards to wrap his arms around her waist. She was still too paralyzed with embarrassment to pull away even as he kissed her forehead with all the satisfaction in the world, and she stood stiff in his arms, reluctant even to loop her own around his shoulders. “I was really worried when I woke up and saw that you left. When did you get up? Why’d you leave? Are you okay?”

Kya hated that she was awake enough now to know that her heart ached. This sincerity, this gentleness…she didn’t even know if she could take it.

“I’m fine,” she said flatly.

“I’m glad.” He let her go, mercifully forgetting about his other two questions, and looked her in the eyes (well, tried, as well as he could with her eyes downcast) before he leaned in and _that_ was when Kya knew that she couldn’t let this go on.

  
“Hyun…” she turned her head so that his lips would not meet hers and pressed her hand to his chest with just enough force to let him know that she was trying to push him away. “I…I can’t.”

Hyun’s face fell. “What do you mean?”

“I…can’t,” she repeated helplessly. “I…this is a political marriage, Hyun. I can’t…I can’t _do_ that.”

Hyun looked a little more aware now, but with that came a cloud of hurt that made Kya’s heart twinge, knowing she was its cause. “But…last night?”

_Spirits,_ that wobble in his voice was going to kill her.

  
“Hyun, I’m sorry,” she said softly, her hand still pressed to his chest. “Last night, I…I got carried away. That can’t…that can’t be a thing.”

“Carried away?” Hyun blinked a few times as if somehow that would clear things up. “But…you didn’t do anything wrong.” He smiled broadly, his face open and innocent. “You did a lot of things _very_ right, actually.”

“I was lonely,” she admitted, her cheeks burning both at his praise ( _do_ not _think about that!,_ she admonished herself) and at her own embarrassment. “I was scared, and I didn’t want to be alone, so I let myself get carried away, and I never should’ve done that, and I’m so _sorry._ You deserve better than that.”

  
“Kya, no,” Hyun murmured, taking her hands and squeezing them gently. “It’s okay. I mean…we’re allowed to do that stuff.” He grinned sheepishly. “Spirits know _I_ liked it.” His eyes searched hers. “I…I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep things political. I mean, I _like_ you, Kya. I might actually-“

“Hyun, we can’t.”

Kya cut him off before he could say something neither would ever be able to go back on and turned, burying her face in her hands. “I don’t think you’re understanding this. I’m not _nervous.”_ Her pounding heart protested otherwise. “It’s not that I’m shy. You know that by now.” She flushed, because now he knew _exactly_ how shy she wasn’t, and she wasn’t exactly eager to relive the moment he’d learned that. “I’m saying this because…whatever happened last night was an impulsive decision that I made because I was afraid of being alone and it isn’t something I ever intended to do again.” 

“What?” Hyun’s eyes widened. “Is…is that why you left? Because…you didn’t want to be with me?”

Kya nodded, a few stray tears starting to slip from her eyes. He didn’t reach out to brush away her tears the way he had the night before, when she’d cried as he held her for no reason at all, but she felt the phantom brush of thumbs across her cheeks even so.

“But I thought…”

“ _I only slept with you because I didn’t want to be alone.”_

Her words fell like the blade of a guillotine and she couldn’t help but turn.

“I see,” Hyun said, his voice flat.

“I told you I shouldn’t have,” Kya admitted, her voice wobbly and tears waiting on the precipice to fall. “And I’m _sorry,_ Hyun. _Agni,_ I’m so sorry. I never should’ve… _used_ you like that but Hyun, I’m so _sick_ of being alone, and I…”

“You could have just asked for a hug if you felt lonely, Kya.” Hyun’s words were sharper than she’d ever heard them. “But… _that?_ Spirits, Kya, I thought you _loved_ me after the night we had.”

“I just…” she started, but she also knew that no explanation of what she’d done – of her selfishness, of the lack of love she felt so deeply – was going to make sense to a man whose heart and intentions were always so pure. “I was scared, and I couldn’t bear to spend my wedding night alone, and it was the only thing I could think to do, and I told you a _million_ times that I was sorry but…no.” She shook her head, matted hair brushing her shoulders. “It wasn’t…it wasn’t what you thought it was.”

“I wish you’d told me that before,” he said stonily, and there was nothing much more to be said.

“I’m so sorry,” was all she could manage before she turned on her heel and fled.

* * *

“I’m afraid the situation is still too, erm, _volatile-“_

“More _volatile_ than the bloodbath that this is going to turn into if you don’t do what you’d already promised us you’d do?” Zuko’s fist slammed the desk in front of him and a paperweight jumped at the impact. “We gave you everything you wanted and you’re just going to _back out?”_

“Have you heard of the prisoner’s dilemma, Lord Zuko?” Queen Lian looked at her counterpart straight-on, her beady eyes tracking his every movement.

He had, but he wasn’t about to admit that he barely remembered what it was, let alone why it was relevant. “I don’t have time for _game theory_ when lives are at stake.”

“Ah, so you know.” She twirled a heavy gold pin she’d pulled from her elaborate coiffure between her fingers. “Then you had to know that there was a chance that I would choose not to cooperate.”

“We hand over our own _child,_ and you _back out?”_ Katara rose from her seat so forcefully that it teetered, ever-so-close to crashing backwards to the floor. “Do you realize that this is an act of war?”

“It’s really not, Lady Katara,” Queen Lian said, her inflection more bored than anything else.

“Then what was the point of that wedding?” Zuko asked, every word a dagger. “What was the point of forcing our daughter to marry your son against their will if you never intended to honor the deal and you _knew-“_

“She's tying our hands,” Katara cut in. “Making sure she has something to tie us to the Earth Kingdom, so that if we acted against them, we’d be condemned.”

“Oh, so you _do_ get it.” Queen Lian tossed the hairpin a few inches above her hand, her eyes tracking its rise and fall. “Glad to know _someone_ in this country has sense.”

“If _you_ had any, you’d keep your word and help us stabilize the border crisis that _your_ people started!”

“Well, if your _husband_ had any, he’d know to leave well enough alone!”

  
“Lian, these are my _citizens._ It’s my sworn duty to protect them.” Zuko had tried and _tried_ to keep his tone measured, but there was absolutely no reason to now. “Thousands of people are in danger, and I’m not letting this escalate, with or without your help.”

“Fine. Have it your way.” Lian smirked. “Send in the military. Take the place over, implement martial law or whatever it is you Fire Nationals do when you don’t know what else there is to be done. See how the Earth Nationals in your territory like _that.”_

“It is the Earth National population of the Matori Province that I’m trying to _protect,”_ Zuko hissed. “They’re the ones in danger, and I would think that you would know that, but apparently you care less about your own people than you do about saving face!”

“They stopped being my people the moment they chose to stay on the other side of the border.” Lian shrugged. “They aren’t my problem anymore. If you want to make them yours, be my guest, but don’t expect my help.” 

“Fine, then.” Katara straightened her spine and set her jaw, determination etched in every line of her face. “If you’re backing out of the deal, give your consent to annul Hyun and Kya’s marriage.”

Queen Lian straightened to mimic Katara’s regal posture, though her height made that all but impossible. “I’m not _backing out,_ I am _amending the terms.”_

“That’s not _amending_ anything, Queen Lian. You’re _undoing_ the terms.”

  
“Well, even so.” Queen Lian stabbed the pin back into her bun. “I believe you already understand, Lady Katara, why I cannot do that.”

* * *

“Izumi?”

Yangchen narrowed her eyes as Izumi practically sprinted past her, coming to an abrupt halt when she heard Yangchen call after her. Relief flooded her face when she saw who’d called. “Oh, hey,” she panted, a little out of breath. _(How long has she been doing that for?_ Yangchen couldn’t help but wonder.) “Have you seen Kya?”

“Uh…no,” Kya said carefully. “No, I haven’t.”

“I wanted to talk to her,” Izumi explained, straightening her robes. “I was hoping you’d know where she went.”

“Yeah, no.” Yangchen shrugged. “Sorry. She doing okay?”

Izumi let her typically-flawless posture drop to a dejected slouch. “Hyun asked me to check on her,” she admitted. “I don’t think he would’ve done that if she hadn’t had a bad night.”

Yangchen fell into step beside Izumi and they both continued to walk. “Well, I can help you find her,” she offered.

“Thanks, Yangchen.” Izumi managed a watery smile. “How was your trip?”

  
“Well, it’s awful over there, and I thought my dad was dead for a few hours, so that’ll give you a rough idea of it.”

“How bad…?”

“Burn-down-a-whole-village bad.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Why would I make that up, Izumi?”

“And it’s all targeted at-“

“Earth Nationals,” Yangchen said gravely. “Yeah. And now that the Earth Queen is refusing to comply with the agreement, I…I don’t know what’s going to happen to them.”

“I have some idea.” Izumi’s eyes were cold and hard as granite. “This is exactly like something I learned about in my history lessons as a kid. Ever heard of the Tsengpan Crisis?”

“The Tsengpan Crisis…” Yangchen wracked her brain, wondering if or where she’d heard that before. “No, I don’t think I have. What’s that?”

“About two hundred years ago, something pretty similar happened in a region of the Fire Nation Kingdom with a big Air Nomad population. A bunch of them had left the Air Temples and their nomadic way of life to settle down there, and something a lot like this happened, albeit…minus the royalty stuff.” Izumi glanced over at Yangchen to see if she was getting her drift. “Anyway. There was a land shortage, and the Fire Nationals kind of made the Air Nomads the scapegoats, even though they didn’t even really farm. There was so much violence against Air Nomads in the region that most of them fled to the cities, hoping things would be better there. No one was prepared to handle the influx of refugees, so it was a mess for a while.”

“So…you think we’re going to end up with a refugee crisis on our hands,” Yangchen said.

“Yeah.” Izumi adjusted her hairpiece – she’d taken to doing that when she was nervous. “How bad did you say it was?”

“Well, I met two little kids who were begging on the side of the road because their house had been burned down and their parents were dead, and they weren’t even all that unusual, so I think that speaks for itself.”

“So it’s already getting worse,” Izumi murmured, dread blooming in her chest.

“It is,” Yangchen said gravely. “If the Earth Nationals are going leave, it’s not going to be long before they start flooding into Caldera.”

* * *

“Kya? Are you all right?”

“Go away,” Kya called, totally unconcerned that she probably sounded like a petulant child. She didn’t even know who was _there,_ but she didn’t care, either, and she wasn’t in the mood to talk to whoever it was. The morning light was streaming full-force through the windows and she was perfectly content to bury her face in a pillow, blocking it out.

But the voices (that one had been Yuna’s, she later realized) didn’t stop, and a few hours later another tried its hand.

  
“Kya, sweetie, are you still in there?” her mother asked.

“Yes,” Kya replied, “and I’m _staying_ in here.”

Katara knew it was no use, and that was that.

Her father was next to try and apparently he’d learned from his predecessors’ mistakes.

  
“Kya, if you need to talk-“

“No thank you.”

Then, apparently, they’d dispatched her sisters.

“Kya? What happened?” Sana tried, but her soft voice grated on Kya’s already-worn nerves.

“Nothing,” she called, and Sana’s footsteps padded back down the hall.

Then they’d tried someone who, in Katara’s words, ‘might know what she’s going through.’

“Do you need anything?” Ryuji asked.

“No,” Kya called back. “Thanks.”

He, too, realized that there would be no getting through to her, and left.

“Kya, we’ve been looking for you all day,” Izumi tried next.

“Well, you found me, so please leave me alone.”

Even Hina had apparently been roped into this.

“If you need to talk to someone, I’m a neutral third party,” Hina said, and Kya _almost_ laughed. Only Hina would be so blunt.

“Thanks, but you’re legally bound to report everything I say to my parents, so no.”

  
Sakari, evidently, had been saved for last, as she had no one’s idea of good bedside manner.

“Kya, if he hurt you, I _swear_ I’m going to flay him alive.”

“I think _I’m_ the one who hurt _him,_ Saki.”

“Good.” Kya flinched when she heard the door crack and Sakari let herself in.

“How did you get in here?”

“Uncle Sokka taught me to pick a lock.” She shrugged as if this was nothing important. “You look awful.”

Kya was certain her sister, however uncharitably, was right, but she couldn’t care less.

“I _feel_ awful,” she admitted. Sakari, at least, would probably not run and tell their parents whatever she said. “If anyone hears about this, you’re _dead.”_

“I’m aware.” Sakari took a seat on her bed, uninvited. “So what exactly did you do to Hyun to warrant locking yourself in your room all day?”

_How much should I tell her?_ Kya wondered, suddenly faced with the mind-melting awkwardness of talking about her bedroom affairs with her little sister. “Um. Something I shouldn’t have,” she finally concluded.

“Did you stab him?” Sakari crossed her arms. “ _Please_ say you stabbed him…”

“Agni, Saki, _no.” That might actually be less complicated than this._ “I did not _stab_ my husband.”

“So what _did_ you do?”

“Please don’t make me answer that.”

Sakari looked her sister up and down and her eyes settled on the column of her neck, widening at a mark that Kya shifted her hair to conceal a moment too late.

“…I think I’m getting the point,” Sakari said, her face paler than Kya had ever seen it.

“Then you see why I’m in this predicament.”

“Yeah.” Sakari winced. “I… _really_ did not need to know that.”

She fled, and Kya breathed a sigh of relief though her face burned with embarrassment. But her tentative peace was not to last.

“Kya, are you still here?” a voice at the door called a few moments later. Kya didn’t answer, but the speaker let herself in through the still-unlocked door.

_I knew I should’ve locked that again when Sakari left._

“Well.” Yuna looked around the room – rumpled sheets, disheveled occupant – and her eyes widened. “Someone had a rough night.”

“Did my mother put you up to this?”

“No, actually.” Yuna shook her head. “Saki did.”

Kya thought she was going to vomit. “Oh, Agni,” she murmured, hurriedly moving her loose hair in front of her neck’s conspicuous new embellishments ( _not the wedding gifts I thought I’d be getting,_ she thought bitterly).

“She said you needed, and I quote, ‘the sex talk.’”

“Yeah, can we _not_ do that?”

“It’s all right, Kya. I won’t judge.” Yuna patted Kya’s hand, laughing softly. “Do you...do you _need-“_

_“No!”_

“But did you-“

  
“That’s _classified.”_

“Your sister actually already shared her…speculations with me,” Yuna said. “I just wanted to confirm because I have some advice-“

“Thanks, but I don’t need it.”

“Kya, it’s okay to be vulnerable,” Yuna said, her grey eyes wide with earnest conviction. “Giving yourself to someone is a beautiful act of-“

“Yuna!” Kya yelped, burying her face in a pillow like a child frightened of a storm.

“-trust,” Yuna finished.

“No, ‘giving myself to someone’ was the biggest mistake of my _life,”_ Kya corrected.

“Did he hurt you?” suddenly Yuna’s eyes flashed.

“No,” Kya admitted, her voice small. “No, quite the opposite.”

Yuna couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, so he’s good in-“

“Yuna, I am _begging_ you to stop.” Kya glared at her sister-in-law. “And yes.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I don’t love him.”

“No one expects you to, Kya.”

“But he thought I did.”

“Does _he_ love _you?”_

“I think so.”

“Did you tell him-“

“No.”

“ _Oh.”_

“I only did it because I didn’t want to be alone.”

“ _Oh…_ ”

“And now he’s heartbroken.”

“Oh, Kya…” Yuna enfolded Kya in her arms, her face buried in Kya’s shoulder.

“I know.” Kya _finally_ gave in to the moisture in her eyes and the wobble in her chin. “Believe me, I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hyun and Kya need couples' therapy :( POOR BABIES.


	14. Plans and Counterplans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara and Zuko discuss the best course of action. Sana attempts to advise Gyatso. The Earth Queen is up to no good, as usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sana wasn't supposed to show up here, but I'm kind of in love with her now. SHE BABY.

“We’re going to have to act on our own.”

“I know.” Katara’s fists clenched beneath the sheets where both knew they wouldn’t be sleeping that night. “But…Spirits, I would _murder_ that woman if I thought I could get away with it.”

“We all would,” Zuko replied.

“Yeah, but…Zuko, that could’ve been _me,_ getting married off to a stranger _.”_ She couldn’t meet Zuko’s eyes. “She’s _miserable. Caged._ I know how that feels, and it’s the _worst,_ and all I ever wanted for her was whatever I didn’t have and…”

“We didn’t have a choice, Katara,” Zuko sighed. “We’ve-“

“No, but that’s the thing. We _did_ have a choice!” Katara threw up her hands in protest. “If the Earth Queen never even intended to agree to our terms, we didn’t have to agree to hers!”

“We didn’t know that tat the time. We can’t fault ourselves for assuming she would cooperate.”

“Well, clearly, we miscalculated.” Katara rubbed her temple wearily. “I thought she’d want to protect her people more than she wanted to twist our arm, but apparently I expected too much of her.”

“I don’t think she thinks of these as ‘her people,’” Zuko said. “She said it herself – as soon as they left the Earth Kingdom, they…ceased to be her problem, I think that was what she said. If she’s as self-interested as she seems to be, why should she care? It’s not in her territory. None of this is hurting _her.”_

“I hate her.” Katara clenched her fists again, taking fistfuls of red satin in her hands and closing her fingers tight around them. “I _hate_ her.”

“Katara-“

  
“We’ve already failed Kya over and over and _over_ and _that’s_ the daughter she comes for?” Katara’s voice rose. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted to stab her, Zuko!”

“I know you weren’t.” A few years ago, Zuko would’ve pulled her into his arms and tried to calm her; now he knew to let her ride out her anger on her side of the bed. “And I agree, frankly. She’s just…”

“A garbage human?” Katara offered, a little bit smug. Clearly, she relished the opportunity to talk like an incensed teenager and not the near-fifty-year-old queen she was.

“A garbage human,” Zuko agreed.

“So what are we going to do?”

“Incinerate the landfill?”

“Katara…”

“ _What?_ It’s a valid course of action!”

“I’m not sure that killing heads of state is going to do much for the situation.”

“She trapped our daughter in a miserable arranged marriage for _no reason_!”

“’Tara, love, what we need to do is-“

“Protect Earth National immigrants. I know.” She sighed, turning on her side to face him. “Clearly, whatever mediation Aang tried to do didn’t work, so I don’t think diplomacy is going to work. We can’t exactly fix the drought, or stop the Fire National population from taking it out on them, or even get Lian to secure the border from her side, but…”

“But?”

“We could, I don’t know, send in troops?” Katara shrugged. “At least they could stop some of the more violent episodes. That village wouldn’t have been burnt down if there had been someone to call off that mob.”

“I don’t know, Katara.” Wordlessly, Katara reached for Zuko’s hand, and he ran his thumb along its calloused edges, grounding himself. “You know how much I hate using the military.”

“I do, too,” Katara said softly. “I just don’t know how else to help these people.”

“Well, maybe you don’t need to.”

“Zuko, we’re kind of in charge of this country. If _we_ don’t have a solution-“

“Someone else might,” Zuko cut in. “Think about it. This stuff is Foreign Minister Watanabe’s _job,_ so we could always ask him. Hina grew up there-“

“Um, no, she didn’t.”

“Okay, _spent time there growing up,”_ Zuko acquiesced. “Anyways. Hina knows the areas, Minister Watanabe knows more about foreign policy than anyone, and Aang and Yangchen have actually been there recently. So ask them. I mean…why are we not already talking to Hina about this? I’m _sure_ she has ideas already.”

“You’re probably right,” Zuko admitted.

“ _Probably?”_

“Of course you’re right, Katara.” Zuko was only barely placating her; the treaty with Lian had been an incredibly rare example of Katara’s judgment leading them astray when most of her instincts proved to be correct. “But…this is _our_ job, not Hina’s, or anyone else’s.”

“We can’t afford to think like that. What we _need_ is a real, workable solution, and they all might have better ideas than we do. You got anything better?”

“Not really,” Zuko admitted. “You’re the ideas one, remember?”

She whacked his arm lightly. “Didn’t I _just_ say that we couldn’t afford to delegate?”

“It’s not delegating if I’m not good at it!”

“Sure, Zuko. Wait…” Katara paused, considering. “Okay, this is going to sound insane, but…what about Hyun?”

“Hyun as in Kya’s _husband?”_ Zuko narrowed his eyes. “I like the boy, I really do, but…what could he possibly know about this?”

“A few things. Queen Lian’s motivations, for one.” She glanced at Zuko to gauge his reaction – skeptical, it seemed. “I mean, he might not know _everything,_ but he’s probably overheard something we could use. And, as – to our knowledge – the only member of the Earth Kingdom royal family who _isn’t_ plotting against us, he also might have some influence that we could use.”

Neither bothered to question the assertion that Hyun was probably not involved. The boy was dim, and sweet, and he’d seemed so preoccupied (“heartbreak, I know that when I see it,” Zuko had said upon seeing Hyun moping through the halls the morning after the wedding) that it was unlikely that he was particularly concerned with politics.

“Well…we could try, but I wouldn’t expect much.”

“Oh, I don’t either.” Relieved at having some semblance of a plan, Katara shifted closer to Zuko to rest her head on his shoulder. “But what do we have to lose?”

“Not much.” He pressed his lips to her hair. “Certainly not much.”

* * *

“You seem a little off today.”  
  


“Probably because your foot is constricting my lungs,” Gyatso replied, attempting to cross his arms as he looked up at his sparring partner. He didn’t know why he kept agreeing to these matches when Izumi _always_ won-

Well…perhaps he did.

Izumi laughed. “You’re fine, Gy.” She extended her hand, removing her foot from his chest where she’d lightly set it in a playful signal of victory. He took it gratefully and stood, brushing dust from his singed clothes. “But really, you _did_ seem off today.”

He blinked innocently a few times and prayed she wouldn’t ask why.

“Gyatso, seriously. What gives?”

“Nothing…?”

“You’re a very unconvincing liar.” Izumi walked to a water cooler across the courtyard. “Your breathing was all over the place. I’ve never seen you so out-of-control.”

“I’m _fine!”_ he snapped, embarrassment rapidly shifting to anger. “So stop asking!”

“Gyatso…”

The soft concern in her mirthful golden eyes made him feel guilty and spiteful all at once. “It’s not like you’d understand.”

“What is going _on_ with you?” she followed him as he stalked out of the courtyard.

“I told you to leave me alone!”

“No, actually, you didn’t, and I’d bet you any amount that I’m at _least_ three times more stressed right now than you are, so I would like to not have to worry about you, too, so _please-“_

“Don’t, Izumi.” He stopped abruptly and turned, and Izumi nearly ran into him. “Please don’t do that.”

Her eyes widened at the pain on his face. “Do…what?” she asked.

“Act all concerned,” he told her, his voice beginning to shake. “Like you don’t know _exactly_ why I’m…like this.”

“Fine, then.” Izumi was rarely roused to anger, but when she was, it didn’t burn – it chilled, its ice slicking every surface around her until none of them were safe to walk on. “If you’re just going to yell at me, I’m leaving.”

Gyatso didn’t say anything to that. Instead, he hung back, helpless as he watched her disappear through the gardens.

  
“Agni, I’m so _stupid,”_ he muttered to himself as he sank down next to a pillar, stretching his legs in front of him as he leaned back against it. “Why can’t I ever just… _not?”_

“Not what?”

Gyatso looked up abruptly to find Sana standing above him. “Oh, hi, Sana,” he sighed. “What…what are you doing out here?”

  
“I was just going to get some training in,” she said. Glancing at her tied-back hair, loose tunic, and leggings, Gyatso realized that he probably should’ve guessed that, but he was rather preoccupied with a different Fire Nation princess at the moment. “Do you wanna spar?”

“Actually, I just sparred with Izumi,” he said. “Sorry.”

Sana’s face fell. “Oh, okay.”

Something about the sadness in her eyes – the same gold as Izumi’s but rounder, like the Fire Lady’s, and set against an umber face rather than a pale one – made Gyatso deeply uncomfortable, though. “Wait, I-“

“No, it’s okay. You’re tired.” Sana sat down against the other side of the pillar. “So why are you stupid?”

“It’s nothing,” Gyatso said. “Trust me, Sana, you don’t-“

“I’m not stupid, Gy.” Sana shook her head, curls swishing against the blue of her tunic. “I know you’re in love with my sister.”

“You have three of them, Sana. That isn’t very specific.” It was a rather shoddy defense, but he felt compelled to try _something._

“Izumi, idiot.” Sana elbowed his side from around the pillar. “It’s kind of hard to miss how you look at her.”

  
“Um…”

“So what’d you do this time?” Sana peeked around the pillar, narrowing her eyes. “Unsolicited political advice? She hates that.”

“Oh, yeah, I offended her with my political opinions. That _has_ to be it!”

“You’re really bad at sarcasm for someone who tries to use it as much as you do.”

“Don’t test me, Pipsqueak.”

Sana smacked him again. “Only Kya gets to call me that.”

“It’s an objective fact, Sana. You’re short.” Gyatso almost laughed, surprised at how much less he felt compelled to fling himself off a cliff.

“Still can’t call me that.”

“Who’s gonna stop me?”

“So, what did you _actually_ do to my sister?” Sana crossed her arms, moving over until she sat beside him. Her thigh brushed his and Gyatso glanced down at his leg, then Sana’s furiously-blushing face, and he felt altogether too confused for his liking. “Hideo’s a nice guy and all, but if you made a pass at her, I think he’d probably kill you.”

“I would never do that, Sana.”

“Hey, man, people do weird things when they’re in love.” There was something like regret on her face now. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“I take offense at that.”

“I’m not letting you go until you tell me what happened, Gy.” Shyly, Sana reached out and touched his shoulder, her small fingers barely brushing his singed tunic before she pulled her hand back like he’d burned her, blushing. “I…I know it’s hard to like someone who doesn’t feel the same way. I just wanna be here for you.”

“Thanks, Sana.” Gyatso managed a watery smile. “It’s just…getting harder to be around her when I know she’s getting married soon.”

“It’s kind of hard to feel bad for a guy who’s been pining after a woman with a fiancé for six years, but…yikes.” Sana grimaced. “Sorry, Gyatso. That’s gotta be hard.”

“I’ve tried getting myself to stop, but…”

“It’s no use?” Sana guessed.

“You talk like you know how it feels.”

“I do,” Sana admitted. “I mean, there’s not much I can do about it, but I do know the feeling. Might as well try to help you through it, right?”

“Thanks.”

“But you also can’t just lash out whenever you feel like it,” Sana continued. “Having the feelings is one thing. Letting them hurt people is another.”

“But-“

“Lashing out isn’t going to help.” Now she took his hand, and though both firebenders were always warm, Sana’s small hand felt even hotter than usual in his. “I think you need to talk to Izumi about this. I mean, yeah, you know how she feels about you, but…get closure, you know?”

“I don’t think I could do that, Sana.”

She squeezed his hand. “Sure you can, Gy.” With one last glance at him, she dropped Gyatso’s hand and rose. “Well, I actually do have to practice, but…you can always talk to me, you know that, right?”

“I do.” He nodded. “Thank you, Sana.”

Her face softened as she turned back to him.

“Always, Gyatso.”

* * *

“I take it that my son has been…handled?”

“Prince San? Completely, Your Majesty.” Minister To nodded curtly. “We’re finding that his natural…lack of certain mental faculties makes him an ideal, ehm, _helper.”_

“As I suspected.” Queen Lian’s unreadable expression shifted ever-so-fractionally. “And he’s compliant?”

“Extremely,” Minister To informed her. “He does not realize that anything has changed, it appears.”

“Excellent,” Lian said. “And is there any chance that our, ahem, _influence_ is going to wear off?”

“Not unless he hits his head, Your Majesty.”

“See to it that he does not, then.”

“Affirmative, Your Majesty.”

“And what of Prince Hyun?”

“He does not appear to suspect anything,” Minister To reported. “He knows nothing. And even if he _were_ more observant, I believe that he’s far too distraught about his marriage to pick up on anything unusual.”

“Oh, he is?” Lian didn’t look the least bit concerned at this development.

“It appears that the Princess has been…a difficult wife,” Minister To said cautiously. “Given that it also appears that your younger son is desperately in love with her, he’s quite distressed.”

“Difficult? Good. Someone ought to keep him in line.”

“No, Your Majesty, not _that_ sort of difficult.”

“Oh? Do elaborate.”

“Well, if palace gossip is to be believed, it seems that Princess Kya was probably quite unclear about her…intentions with your son.”

“What intentions could she possibly have? She hates him.”

“Well, apparently, that animosity towards Prince Hyun was overridden by…other needs.”

“ _Oh.”_ Queen Lian laughed mirthlessly. “Well, that would do it.”

“He believed the Princess to be in love with him, it seems,” Minister To elaborated. “Now that he realizes that she is not, he is…quite upset.”

“Well, as long as he doesn’t compromise our plans…”

“I can assure you, Your Majesty, that he will not.”

“And the next phase of the plan?”

“Ready for completion, Your Majesty.”

“Excellent. Thank you, Minister.”

“Of course, Your Majesty. All that remains is to decide which member of the royal family would be of the most strategic value. We need someone who won’t be missed enough to halt palace operations, but whose absence will still be enough of a distraction to throw them off our scent. We’re leaning towards-“

Both froze at the sound of a knock on the door.

  
“May I come in?” a voice called from the hallway. “I’ve been sent to clean this parlor.”

Minister To’s face went sheet-white.

* * *

“And you heard…what, exactly?”

“Not a lot.” Kiri, head maid of the palace’s eastern wing, was, nevertheless, almost shaking as she stood in front of the Spymistress’ desk, her bony knees almost knocking. “Just…something about targeting a member of the royal family?”

Hina nodded gravely. “I’d expected something like this. Thank you, Kiri.”

Kiri bowed formally, her legs still shaking. “I’m…I’m sorry I don’t have more useful information, Spymistress.”

“Kiri, what you’ve just told me is the most useful intelligence I’ve gotten since the delegation showed up three months ago.” Hina smiled tightly, stepping out from behind her desk. “You can be assured that it’ll be put to good use.”

“But, Spymistress, they’re going to know that I heard them. What if they change their plan?”

“Well, we can’t do anything about that. But what if they _don’t_ know you heard them? That’s what we’re banking on.”

“Seems like…not a lot to bank on.”

“No, it isn’t, Kiri. But it’s all we’ve got.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why does that random maid have more sense than half the cast of this story? Idk man.


	15. We Need to Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hina warns her daughter of her suspicions; Izumi confronts Gyatso; Ryuji and Yuna have a Moment™; Sakari has advice for Hyun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dialogue-only for this one...why not?

“Yuna, we need to talk.”

Yuna chuckled, shifting against the pillows. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard that one.”

Hina sat down beside her. “Yuna…”

“Oh. It’s serious.”

“Afraid so. Where’s Ryuji?”

“I think he was with Izumi, last I checked. Want me to call him?”

“No, I’ll just brief him separately. There’s no need to wake Sora…I know how hard it can be to get them to go down.”

“Actually, it didn’t take long this time.”

“Well, count your blessings, then. Anyway, sorry to burst your bubble, but I’m here because I need to brief you.”

“Brief us? About what?” 

“I’m sure your sister made you aware of our suspicions about the Earth Queen’s delegation.”

“She did mention that. What about it?”

  
“Well, we have new information which, unfortunately, I think might pertain to you and Ryuji.”

  
“Me?”

“One of the maids happened to overhear a conversation between Queen Lian and Foreign Minister To while, apparently, dusting hallway furniture. They mentioned targeting a member of the royal family for…some unspecified purpose. Kiri didn’t remember much.”

“And you think…”

“The only other thing she remembered was that they wanted to target someone who would be missed but not so much so as to disrupt daily life. That obviously wouldn’t be Zuko or Katara, and probably not Izumi either. So, given that they probably think Sana and Sakari are irrelevant, and given the added political clout that Ryuji gets from being married to the Avatar’s daughter, it’s entirely possible that they were referring to him.”

“Target as in…assassination attempts?”

“No, I believe they made a reference to abduction.”

“Aren’t they going to change that plan if you overheard it, though?” 

“Ah, I taught you well. Probably.”

“So why are you telling me this?”

  
“Because it’s entirely possible that they’ll assume the same thing.”

“Wait, I’m confused…”

“Basically, they know that that maid heard something. That’s not really in debate. But they’re not sure what, or how much.”

  
“So they might not realize that she told anyone.”

“Exactly. They might assume that word could’ve gotten out, but they probably aren’t assuming that Kiri came straight to me with the information. So there are one of two things they could be thinking. One, no one knows anything, and it’s safe to proceed. Two, someone knows, and they’re prepared, so they need to change their plans. And three, someone knows, but because they’re assuming that the Queen will change her plans since they’ve been compromised, they aren’t prepared to combat whatever was supposed to happen in the original plan.”

“And you’re thinking it’s the third?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“And what are Ryu and I supposed to do about it?”

“We’ve ordered extra security for everyone who might be targeted. All you have to do is stay where you’re protected.”

“And what about Sora? Could he be in danger too?”

“Well, I doubt it, but there’s always a chance.”

“Mama, if there’s even the _slightest_ chance that he’s the target-“

“Yuna, sweetie, the odds are slim to none.”

“But he’s never even been away from us! If he gets kidnapped-“

“No one is kidnapping your son, Yuna.”

  
“But you _just_ said-“

“Please, sweetie, just trust the statistics, okay?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that first? I think I have a right to know if he’s in danger!”

“Yuna, panicking isn’t going to solve anything.”

“This is my _baby_ we’re talking about! If anything happened to him-“

“Sweetie…”

“-I couldn’t live with myself.”

“We won’t let anything happen.”

  
“Oh, but you _would_ let them abduct my husband?”

“No one is letting anyone abduct anyone!”  
  


“But you _just_ said-“

“Yuna, we will do everything in our power to keep all three of you safe. I’m just addressing your concerns about Sora because, frankly, they’re founded!”

“Are you _kidding_ me? You just told me nothing would happen to him!”

“I’m just saying that the risk to Sora is much greater if something does happen than it is to Ryuji. That’s it. That’s all! I’m not saying that we’ll let either of them get kidnapped!”

“Mama…”

“Yuna, I know. Believe me, I do.”

“No, you _don’t.”_

“Yes, I _do,_ sweetie. You forget that I went through this once, too.”

“Oh, really? Someone tried to abduct your baby? Because _I_ certainly never heard about that!”

“No, but my husband was always in danger, too, and I had to raise my children with targets on their backs. You can’t tell me that I don’t know how it feels to raise a family, knowing that that family is in near-constant danger.”

“How did you do it, then? How did you live with it?”

“I think…” Hina paused. “I had faith.”

“In what?”

“Well, in palace security, for one. In them. In myself. In my ability to protect you, and your ability to protect yourselves. In the people who’d be there to raise you if something happened to me. In…”

“Yeah?”

“In the idea that the cycle of loss and peril in our family ended with my children.”

* * *

“This has gone on long enough, Gyatso. We need to talk.” Izumi slammed the door behind her, leaning hard against it.

“What has?” Gyatso feigned ignorance.

“Don’t play dumb, Gyatso. I know you know what I’m talking about.”

“Um…”

“I know that you…have feelings for me. That much has been obvious for a long time.”

“I, um. I…I don’t want to…”

“Don’t want to _what,_ Gyatso? Talk about it? Face the music? Move on?”

“Izumi, I tried _everything._ I studied and meditated for hours on end, went on that pilgrimage to the Southern Air Temple, told myself over and _over_ that we were just friends, and…nothing. _Nothing_ worked. None of it. I couldn’t just stop.”

“I think you were going about it all the wrong way, Gy.”

“But I tried _everything,_ Izumi!”

“No, you tried to keep yourself in denial. That doesn’t work.”

“I was never in denial. It just wasn’t worth dwelling on when I knew that I couldn’t…”

“Couldn’t what?”

“Couldn’t…be with you, I guess.”

“Well, you sure did dwell on it a lot anyways.”

“I tried not to, but that only made it worse!”

“What you needed to do was take an honest look at yourself and _acknowledge_ it.”

“But I _was_ honest.”

  
“No, you weren’t, Gyatso. Trying to convince yourself that you could get rid of it if you tried hard enough…that’s not honesty. You were just perpetuating a lie. And if you weren’t going to admit that you had those feelings, you couldn’t have gotten over me if you’d tried.”

“But I _did_ try, Izumi. That’s what you’re not getting.”

“Okay, so you tried. What then?”

“What do you mean, ‘what then’?”

“What did you try when you realized that all of the meditating and such wasn’t going to do anything?”

“Um…nothing?”

“Exactly. You bottled up your feelings and took them out on everyone around you. What was _that_ ever going to do?”

  
“I’m sorry, Izumi…”

“Sorry that you did it or sorry that I called you on it?”

“I’m sorry I let it go on so long. I knew I shouldn’t have.”

“Well, that might not be fair. You couldn’t really help it, at least at the start. But…thanks.”

“Maybe not when I was thirteen, but once you got engaged, I should’ve…”

“Good Agni above, this started when you were _thirteen?!”_

“What? You didn’t know that?”

“ _No!_ I thought it was _recent!”_

“All of your sisters knew. I’m surprised they didn’t say anything.”

“You…talked to my sisters…about me?”

“No, they just knew.”

“Oh. Okay, for a second there I was going to be _very_ concerned.”

“As if you don’t already think I’m a creep.”

“That’s not true, Gy. I may think you made some questionable decisions in regards to me, but I don’t think you’re a creep.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“Gyatso, if I actually thought you were a threat or a problem or…whatever, I would’ve told my parents and they would’ve swiftly expelled you from the palace.”

“Can they _do_ that?”

“They’re the Fire Lord and Lady. Of course they can do that.”

“But my parents-“

  
“ _Wouldn’t,_ but _could.”_

“I’m not sure whether to be afraid or reassured.”

“Look, I’m not going to lie, I get frustrated sometimes, because it’s been _so long,_ and I honestly don’t understand why you can’t just get over me when you know I’m getting married. But you’re also my friend, and I know you’re not trying to hurt anyone, even though you need to get a handle on your temper.”

“So…you’re not mad?”

“Mad? No. But if I see you being weird about this, I’m not going to hesitate to call you on it.”

“Thank you, Izumi.”

“Of course, Gyatso.”

“So…”

“Yeah?”

“Is this it?”

“Is this what?”

“I don’t know. The end? Like…is that all you’re going to say?”

“Well, I will say that there’s probably a deeper underlying issue here that you need to address, and I think you should talk to someone more qualified than me, but…yeah. It kind of is.”

“I’ve tried talking to my dad. Doesn’t help.”

“Well…maybe try again? It doesn’t have to be your dad. Just…someone who knows.”

“And then what?”

“Just…listen.”

“Listen?”

“Take what they have to say to heart, and see what happens.”

* * *

“But won’t that just inflame the situation?”

“The situation’s going to get inflamed whether we want it to or not, Zuko. It’s sand in an hourglass – it’s going to fall no matter what happens, so it’s better to keep the glass intact and let the fall be controlled than it would be to let things escalate until someone breaks it.”

“I know. It’s just…hard to accept that this is what we have to do.”

“I know, love. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Katara.”

“No, but I’m still sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“Well…I guess we should send the order, if we’ve made up our minds.”

“Okay.”

  
Zuko took up the agreement, reviewing its text before stabbing a quill into an inkwell and signing an angry scribble across the parchment. He sealed it and pressed the document into a waiting servant’s hands, and Katara wrapped her arms around him. 

_Dispatch the Provincial Guard and the Fourteenth Regiment to the towns of Kanashimi, Kōhai, Hisan, Fuitchi, and Shinpai._

“We did what we had to do, Zuko.”

“I know we did.”

* * *

**_Interlude_ **

****

“Yuna, sweetheart, just tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’ve already told you, Ryu.”

“But your mother said we’d probably be fine.”

“Yeah, exactly. _Probably._ I don’t know about you, but I’m not at all comfortable banking on ‘probably’ when our son’s life is at stake!”

“Sora’s as safe as we are, Yuna.” Ryuji gently lifted Sora from her arms, smoothing his hand over his downy hair. “He’s an Oyama, remember? Nothing gets the best of an Oyama.”

“But he’s a _baby._ He’s _our_ baby, Ryu. It’s our _job_ to take care of him and I’m not taking any chances!”

“What do you want me to say, Yuna?”

“That we’ll be fine? That you’ll keep us safe? _Something_ reassuring?”

“So…all of the things you keep getting mad at me for telling you?”

“Sometimes I just want to be irrational, okay?”

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”

Yuna reached out to take the baby from him and he couldn’t help but smile to himself at the way her whole body let go of its tension when she felt his familiar weight in her arms again. “I’m sorry, Ryu. It’s just been…a shock.”

“I know, but…you’ve never asked me to protect you before. Never needed me to. So why now?”

“Because I’m not asking you to protect me. I’m asking you to protect _him.”_

“But-”

“I can’t, Ryu.” Yuna’s jaw began to tremble. “Since I had Sora, I’ve felt so… _weak._ I’m still in so much pain sometimes, and it’s so exhausting, and…if I had to defend him, I don’t think I’d be able to put up much of a fight, and I _hate_ it. I’m an airbending master, I’ve trained to defend myself for _years,_ and yet…I still feel so helpless _,_ and I can’t…I…”

“Yuna, no…”

“Ryuji, don’t.”

“No, Yuna, you need to listen to me. You are so far from weak. You…you _made a person._ Of course you’ll need to be off your feet most of the time for a while. That’s not weak, it’s _sane.”_

“But I _am_ defenseless right now, and so is our son. You can’t deny that.”

“I see.”

“See what?”

“Why you want me to protect you.”

“Because we’re in danger, and I can’t do it myself?”

  
“You won’t have to, Yuna. That’s a promise.”

“You can’t make promises like that, Ryu.”

“Yes, I can, Yuna. I’m…it’s my job to promise you that.”

“No, it’s-“

“For so many years, you were the one looking out for me. When my sisters would mess with me, you were the one who got them to stop. At school, you’d drag me into office hours to talk to my professors when I didn’t agree with my grade but was too shy to say so. Whenever the Acolytes were after my head, you told them off. And remember that market in Ba Sing Se?”

“How could I forget?”

“I think you took out five guys singlehandedly, and all they’d wanted was my wallet.” Ryuji smiled and brushed his closed fingers along Yuna’s jawline. “You’ve always protected me, Yuna. And now you need me, and I’m not going to let you down.”

  
“Thank you, Ryuji.”

“You’re my whole world, Yuna. You know I’d do anything for you.”

“I think your son takes offense at that.”

“It’s the collective ‘you.’ I meant both of you. My _family.”_

“Us ‘til the end, right?”

“Us ‘til the end.” 

* * *

“So. What are your intentions with my sister?” Sakari crossed her arms as her eyes followed Hyun’s every movement.

“Um…I married her?”

“No, your _intentions.”_

“Um…to not get myself killed?”

“I meant _romantically.”_

“Am I supposed to have those?”

“You’re her husband, so…yeah, I would say so.”

“She doesn’t _want_ that, Princess.”

“Okay, there are two things wrong with that statement.”

“This ought to be good.”

“One, I’ve told you a million times to call me Sakari. Saki works too, but not Princess.”

“Right, sorry. Force of habit.”

“And secondly, I think she does want that. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“And I’m supposed to do what, exactly?”

“I don’t know, Hyun, I’m not the one who’s _married.”_

“I’ve been married for a week to a woman who hates me! How is that supposed to help?”

“That’s what I’m _saying,_ Hyun. She doesn’t hate you.”

“But she _does.”_

“Hyun, she’s lonely and sad and doesn’t like to open up to people. None of that means that she hates you.”

“But she-“

“What was her first instinct when she didn’t want to be alone?”

“Um…”

“She went to you.”

“You knew about that?”

“I dragged it out of her.”

“Oh, Spirits…”

“Yeah, my reaction was similar.”

“Um. Your point?”

“My point is, why would she have done that if she hated you?”

“Because she was _lonely._ She said so.”

“But she didn’t hate you. And you know what I think?”

“What?”

“She doesn’t want to admit that she’s falling for you.”

“You…you actually think so?”

  
“I do, Hyun. I think she likes you more than she wants to let on.”

“And why are you telling me this?”

“Because I think she needs you.”

“And what do I do?”

“Just don’t give up on her, okay?”

“I would never, Sakari.”

“Trust me, Hyun. She’ll come around.”


	16. Shelter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aang and Hina worry. Hyun opens up to Kya about his family. Following an alarming development, Yuna and Yangchen make a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot begins to thicken!

“You’re worried about Yuna, aren’t you.”

Aang didn’t even need to ask why he’d entered Hina’s study to find her pacing the floor. He knew to let her – they’d both taken to it, walking off their worry, in the past few years.

“Yeah.” Hina didn’t stop moving. “Silly, right? I _should_ be worrying about the war that’s just waiting to break out, but…”

“It’s not silly, Hina. She’s our daughter.”

“I mean, I know that. But there’s a crisis out in the Matori Province, thousands of lives are in danger – including that of the aunt I didn’t know I still had – and I’m worrying about things palace security could take care of in five minutes if it had to.” Hina shrugged helplessly. “I haven’t been so concerned for their safety since they were little. I don’t know why I am now.”

“Probably because you remember what it’s like to be her.” Aang wouldn’t stop her from pacing, but he began to walk with her, matching Hina’s much-shorter strides as he fell into step beside her. She reached for his hand and he took hers. “I know I’m feeling for Ryuji right now.”

  
“I guess,” Hina sighed. “It does make sense. Being a first-time parent isn’t easy, I remember that much, but…seeing how scared she was last night made me worry for her.”

“Is she doing any better today?”

“I don’t think she’ll be any better-off until the danger passes,” Hina replied. “At breakfast today, she was clinging to Ryuji like she never has before. Won’t set Sora down for a second. Yuna’s always been a little bit of a worrier, but she’s strong, and I’ve never seen her act so…”

“Scared?”

“No, not scared. I know what Yuna’s scared looks like. This is…” Hina thought for a moment. “Helplessness. I’ve never seen her act so helpless.”

“Do you think this is just about what you told her, or is there something else going on here?” Aang asked.

“Well, ordinarily, I’d chalk it up to some sort of new-parent freakout and leave it at that. But we’re all under a lot of pressure, and I think she might be feeling some of that.”

“But we’ve tried so hard to-“

“I know, Aang. But she’s too smart not to pick up on the tension, no matter how hard we try to keep her away from it all.”

“Well, at least Katara and Zuko are trying to get a handle on the Matori situation,” Aang offered, though he didn’t sound very sure of himself.

“Aang, calling the troops into Matori was a…bandage, at best. A clumsily-wrapped bandage that’s only supposed to prevent an all-out massacre.”

“I know, but at least we’re doing _something,_ right?”

“Right,” Hina acquiesced, changing course and _finally_ taking a seat on the settee along her office’s back wall. Aang settled in next to her and, as she leaned her head against his shoulder, his hand settled on her hip.

“Hina, there’s nothing more that you can do right now,” he said gently. “It’s going to be easier if we just take action when we need to instead of worrying when we know we can’t.

“You’re right, I guess.” Hina wrapped her arms around his waist, settling against his shoulder. “As usual.”

“This is actually a very rare occurrence, me being right,” he chuckled, resting his chin atop her head. “That’s kind of your thing.”

  
“Well, you have your moments.” She ducked her head out from beneath his chin to kiss his cheek. “My wise little Avatar.”

“Spirits, I don’t know how I ever got so lucky,” he murmured, almost lost in thought. A faint smile pulled at his lips.

“This isn’t really the time for romance, Aang.”

“No, but…near-death experiences make you think,” he chuckled. “Ever since I got back from Kanashimi, I’ve been…thinking too much, I guess.”

  
“About what?”

“Oh, my choices, how I’ve done as an Avatar, our family…that sort of thing.”

“Mm. And what did you decide?” Hina shifted, realizing they’d be here a while, and laid her head in his lap. Aang smiled down at her, leaning to press a kiss to her forehead. She let down her impeccable topknot and he took the hint, running his fingers through her hair.

“A lot of Avatars don’t marry,” he told her. “Recently, quite a few have, but in the past, many didn’t. Fewer still get to settle down at all. So…I’m pretty lucky.”

“That you did?”

  
“That I found you without even looking,” he said, his fingers brushing her jaw as he stroked her hair. Hina took his hand in hers and pressed it to her cheek, closing her eyes. “And that I got to have a life with you, and…our children, and…that we were happy.”

“You make it sound like you’re dying,” Hina replied, pressing her cheek against his palm.

“It’s always good to reflect, right?”

“I supposed, but I’ve never been as fond of that as you have.” Hina looked up at him again, green eyes dancing with amusement.

“Oh, I know you haven’t. It’s rubbed off on me,” he chuckled. “You made me hate meditating for a good, long while, did you know that?”

“Well, that’s not good. Wouldn’t want to distract you from your Avatar duties.”

“Oh, you distracted me, all right,” he teased. “In the weeks before I proposed to you, I couldn’t have meditated if my life had depended on it.”

“You never told me that.” Hina smiled softly. “Why, nerves?”

“No, not nerves. Just…you,” Aang told her. “I’d think about you for a second, and suddenly you would be _all_ I could think about. I’d get so distracted.”

“I’d imagine that didn’t get much better after the fact.”

“Not at all.” Aang shook his head fondly. “It would get better for a time, but I’d always end up thinking about you again. I didn’t even _try_ for a few months after the wedding. Would’ve been pointless.”

Hina shifted to sit up against the armrest, her legs still stretched across his lap. “I love that you actually _want_ to think about me,” she murmured, one hand on his waist to anchor her as the other caressed his cheek.

“Hina, you can’t still be surprised by that,” he replied, his eyes fluttering shut as he leaned into her touch. “You’re my _favorite_ thing to think about.”

  
She couldn’t help but kiss him for that, and suddenly Hina was twenty-one and breathless again, leaning against the back wall of an abandoned garden as light and music in the distance faded to irrelevance.

“I think I’m the lucky one,” she murmured against his lips, and he shook his head fervently.

“No,” he insisted. “No, Hina.”

“This is crazy, Aang. There’s a war about to break out, our daughter is having a parenting crisis, the Earth Queen is probably conspiring against us, and we’re…kissing in my office?”

“Um…do you want to stop?”

“Agni, _no.”_ Hina laughed, threading her arms around his neck. “Of course I don’t.”

“Well, you know I can’t say no to you,” Aang teased, leaning in again before she stopped him with a finger to his lips.

“We’re terrible at our jobs,” she commented, and Aang looked incensed that _that_ was the comment she’d stopped him from kissing her to make. But he smiled, after a moment.

“The worst,” he agreed, and added, “everyone needs a break from time to time, right?”

“Definitely,” she murmured before lips met and all else was utterly irrelevant.

Hina thought she’d earned the right to be a little bit irresponsible.

* * *

“Kya?”

Kya sat bolt upright, stowing her romance scroll in her pillowcase out of habit. “Yes?” she called. She hadn’t expected to hear her husband’s voice at her door, but she was surprised to find that she didn’t mind.

“May I come in?” Hyun asked, and her heart clenched at the hope in his voice.  
  
“Yeah, sure,” she called, getting up to let him in. “You, uh…you need something?”

“No, I just want to talk to you.” Hyun shrugged. “That okay?”

“Uh, actually…yeah,” Kya said, surprising even herself. She sat down against her pillows again and Hyun stood awkwardly to the side, unsure what to do. “You can, um, you can sit down if you want.”

“You mean…here?” Hyun gestured to the bed.

Kya nodded, patting the comforter next to her, and his eyes lit up. He sat down beside her, a few conspicuous inches of space separating them.

“I guess…I just wanted to check in,” he said, shrugging, after a moment. “Make sure you’re okay, what with all this stuff about us being in danger or something?”

“That’s…sweet of you, Hyun,” Kya said, her cheeks burning. “Yeah, I’m okay. You?”

“I’m…not so great, but it’s okay. What matters now is making sure _you_ stay safe.”

“You can tell me,” Kya said haltingly. “I mean, what’s wrong. I know you have every reason to hate me, but you’re _here,_ and…honestly, Hyun, I don’t hate you, not at all, and I’m sorry and I want to make it up to you, and if you need someone to talk to-“

She froze mid-sentence when Hyun’s hand brushed hers.

“Um,” he stammered. “Can I…can I, you know…”

Every wall Kya had tried to build was utterly undone by the hopeful nervousness in Hyun’s eyes, and she took his hand firmly in hers. “You’re not mad at me?”

“I’m not,” he told her. “Maybe at first, but…not anymore.” Hyun met her eyes. “I just want you to be…safe, and happy, and…and…”

“Thank you, Hyun.” A lump rose in Kya’s throat. “I know you probably don’t believe me, but…I want that for you, too. So if you need to talk to someone…”

“Is that okay?”

“Hyun, I’ve given you permission, like, four times.”

“Then I want it five,” he said fervently, squeezing her hand.

“Okay, then. You can talk to me.”

“Thank you, Kya.” His answering smile was wan but sincere. “So, um. It’s not exactly a great feeling, knowing that your mom is plotting against your in-laws.”

“As one of said in-laws, I know,” Kya sighed. “I’m sorry, Hyun.”

“I want to confront my mother, but the Spymistress said that would just make it worse,” Hyun continued. “And she said they’re probably not targeting us, but if there’s even a chance…”

“You know I know you’re not like them, right?”

  
“Huh?”

“You’re not, Hyun.” Kya wrapped her free hand around the outside of his. “You’re nothing like your family.”

“I know, but I still hate that…that I have to worry that my own family is going to hurt you.” Hyun squeezed her hand protectively, then his eyes widened in shock. “Wait…how did you know?”

“How did I know what?”

“To say that.” His eyes searched hers. “That I’m not like my family.”

“Hyun, do you know anything about _my_ family?”

“Uh…you have a ton of siblings and your parents are-“

“No, not that family. I mean…my ancestors?”

“The ones that took over my country?”

“Yeah. _Those_ ancestors.” Kya glanced over at him to see if he was getting it. “The ones I was constantly getting compared to growing up because everyone thought I was a psychopath.”

“How could anyone ever think you were…bad like that?” Hyun’s eyes widened. “You agreed to marry a man you’d never met for your sister!”

“It’s hard to get attention in a big family.” Kya shrugged, a _what-can-you-do_ gesture. “I acted out a lot as a kid, and the minute I did, there’d be a hundred random servants comparing me to my aunt Azula.”

“But you’re _nothing_ like-“

“Try telling that to the thirteen-year-old girl everyone is afraid of.” Kya swallowed hard. “That’s why I did it, you know.”

“Did…what?”

“Agreed to marry you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wanted to prove that I could be good.” She cast her eyes down. “And it worked, but I was miserable for three months, and then we got married and I went and messed things up the minute I got the chance. So much for that.”

"You didn't mess things up. At least...not forever." As if to prove it, Hyun rested his chin on her shoulder. "Yeah, it hurt, but...people make mistakes, right?" 

"You're so much more forgiving than I am," Kya said, dropping a kiss so light she knew he couldn't feel it against the crown of his head. "Thank you." 

"Of course, Kya. No point in holding grudges." 

"Still, I didn't exactly prove anything, either." 

“You didn't _need_ to." He paused to consider his next words. "And even if you think so, can we at least agree that neither of us are like our evil relatives?” Hyun shifted, turning to face her. “Because I’d never hurt you, and you’re not a psychopath, and I think we’re going to be better off if we get that out of the way now.”

Kya couldn’t help but chuckle weakly at his seriousness. “Okay,” she agreed. “But that also means that _you_ can’t blame yourself for anything your mom or your brother do.”

“Oh, I’m not mad at my brother. He’s probably being brainwashed.”

Kya had to take a moment to process that. “I’m sorry, he’s _what?”_

“Brainwashed, probably. The Dai Li?” Hyun offered. “When San and I were kids and we weren’t doing what she told us to do, she’d make this creepy Dai Li guy get us to do what she wanted.”

“Hyun, that’s… _terrifying.”_

“Eh. It’s just how it was, growing up with her.”

“But it _shouldn’t_ have been!” Kya protested, her voice rising. “She would brainwash her own kids? That is _so_ many kinds of twisted!”

“San always said she was the reason we didn’t have a dad, but I don’t buy it.”

Kya didn’t give herself a moment more to think before she took him into her arms, awkward as that was in their position, and held on tight.

“I am so, so sorry,” she murmured, rubbing his shoulders, and he sank down into her arms as if he had no strength left with which to hold himself up. His strong, sure arms clutched at her waist as if his life depended on it. “Hyun, I had no idea…”

“It’s all right,” he said. “She went back home last week, remember? As soon as Minister To and San leave, it’ll all be okay.”

“You don’t have to say that, Hyun.” Suddenly Kya felt a rush of affection and grief for her husband that she’d never have thought she was capable of feeling, and she leaned back against the pillows, letting him recline against her chest as she held him. “It isn’t okay. You don’t have to pretend that it is.”

“I got used to it,” he protested weakly. “It really is fine.”

“Hyun…”

“I have a new family now,” he said simply, shifting so he could look up at her. “I don’t need that one anymore.”

“You do,” Kya agreed, cradling him with all the tenderness she’d been trying not to feel since the wedding. “You have us.” She swallowed hard. “You have me.”

  
“I have you,” he agreed. “I…I _love_ you.”

Kya’s breath caught in her throat, and the bedroom fell dead-silent for a moment.

“It’s all right, Kya. You don’t need to say it back.” Hyun made no effort to extricate himself from her arms, and Kya made no effort to let go. “But I wanted to say it.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

_I don’t deserve it, I can’t admit it, but…thank you._

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” she continued. “Or…me. And if your mother ever shows her face around here again…”

“I love you,” he gasped, again, desperate, and she held on tight.

She could not say the same, but she was beginning to suspect that someday soon, she might be able to.

* * *

“I am under strict orders to apprehend you at any cost. I would not recommend resistance. Any attempts to escape will be met with-“

“What are you even trying to accomplish here?”

The Prince’s blue eyes were more tired than fearful, which was rather unexpected. Minister To had said to be prepared for resistance. _‘He has a wife and a child and it is likely that he will invoke this in order to get you to free him. You must ignore this,’_ he’d said, his voice mechanical as it always was, and San was rather surprised at his annoyed compliance.

“-harsh and immediate resistance,” San finished.

“You sound like you’re reciting a script,” the Prince challenged, nevertheless letting San lead him to the target location without trouble. “What is _up_ with you?”

“You are supposed to be frightened,” San responded.

“Um, I’m pretty sure you’re some sort of glorified puppet, so no, not really.” The Prince raised his chin defiantly.

“But you have a family. I was told that-“

The annoyance in the Prince’s eyes shifted rapidly to flashing determination. “I’m going along with this because if _I’m_ here, _they’re_ not.”

“But-“

“And you want to know why you don’t scare me?”

(This was a lie. The Prince’s heartbeat was wildly abnormal.)

“No.”

  
“Because we don’t leave each other behind around here.”

* * *

“Yangchen!” Yuna called through the chaos, elbowing her way through the crowd of servants and miscellaneous officials clustered in the hallway. It took her sister only a moment to make her way through.

“Yuna?” Yangchen called back, and with nothing but a nod, the two ducked into a vacant nearby office for privacy. “What’s going on?”

“Ryuji,” she panted. “We can’t find him. It seems like the Earth Queen-“

“Took him, like she said she would?” Yangchen narrowed her eyes when she realized that her sister wasn’t holding Sora. “Wait, where’s the baby?”

“I left him with Izumi,” she said. “I’m going after Ryuji.”

“Yuna, are you _insane?”_

“Uh, did you miss the part where they’re holding my husband hostage?”

“Let palace security take care of it – or better yet, let _mom!_ Or Zuko and Katara! Or literally _anyone_ but the one who can barely even walk!”

“I can walk just fine, Yangchen. You’re not talking me out of this.”

“Okay, so you can walk. Doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t be doing this…need I remind you that you _gave birth three weeks ago_?”

“My mind is already made up. Ryuji and I made a promise to look out for each other, and I’m not breaking it.” Yuna crossed her arms.

“You cried for three hours yesterday because you, and I quote, ‘felt defenseless.’ And now you’re going into a hostage situation?” Yangchen asked, thoroughly unimpressed.

Yuna shook her head. “Maybe I did, but now that the chips are down, I don’t _get_ to be defenseless.”

“Why the sudden change? How did that even _happen?”_

“My husband got kidnapped, that’s how!” 

“What are you even going to do, barge in and demand they let him go?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!” Yuna snapped. “Look, I haven’t had time to think this through-“

“Fine, then,” Yangchen interrupted. “Do it. But not alone.”

“What?”

“I’m coming with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like calling the next chapter "Air Sisters Epic Team-Up!" because it sounds like a corny anime episode title and it amuses me.
> 
> All jokes aside, I'm super excited to write the next chapter because it's one of the ones I've been building towards the whole time. Fun times.
> 
> Also, Hyun's "I love you"? totally unplanned. Whoops.


	17. I'll Cover You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuna and Yangchen set off to de-abduct Ryuji. A fresh wave of unrest in the Matori Province sets unexpected complications into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really just wanted a Yunuji chapter, even though I'm awful at action and worse at exposition. This chapter was inexplicably difficult for me to write - it took me three days to get past the first 500 words - and as such, I kind of just had to bulldoze through the wall I’d hit. As a result, this is not a well-written chapter, guys, so...sorry. It’s kind of the one I had to get over with to move on.
> 
> #WeLoveDeusExMachinas

Yuna had never been the reckless sister.

No, that had always been Yangchen’s role in their family: shaking things up, doing the unexpected. She was the one who’d go in without a plan, whose instincts were better than her tactical skills. When people compared Yuna to their mother, it was her book-learning and fine strategic mind that they were praising; those who compared Yangchen to Hina, if they weren’t referring to her looks, usually mentioned her natural but incredibly raw instinct for spycraft.

Needless to say, then, this was unprecedented.

“Wait, you have _no_ plan?” she asked, crossing her arms. “None at all?”

“I found out my husband had been kidnapped fifteen minutes ago, Yangchen. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to make a plan,” Yuna snapped.

“Okay, so how are we doing this? Do you have _any_ idea how to find him?”

“Well, no, but I do know that it’s going to be easier while the palace is in chaos, so whatever we do, we need to act quickly,” Yuna said. Yangchen almost felt reassured by that – _this_ was the Yuna she knew, smart and cautious – but they still didn’t have a plan.

“Okay, but we’re not going to get anywhere if we just wander around. I mean, think about it. Where would they take a hostage?”

“They’d probably want to get him off of the palace grounds,” Yuna thought aloud. “Somewhere that it would be difficult to intervene. And we don’t know when he was taken, but since they’re blocking the exits and it probably took everyone a while to figure out that he was gone, they probably got out before we even knew they had him-“

“And now we can’t follow them,” Yangchen finished. 

“But we can try,” Yuna said resolutely. “We _have_ to try.”

“We can’t try if we don’t even know what it is we’re trying!”

“No, but we have your seismic sense, and we know this place like the backs of our hands,” Yuna countered. “And… _wait._ Of course!”

“Um, does that mean you have an idea?” Yangchen asked, crossing her arms skeptically.

“Remember how we used to play Hide-and-Explode as kids?” she asked, a tenuous smile pulling at her lips. “It’s a long shot, but it might help us find him.”

“You’re staking his safety on a _game?”_

“No, seriously, I think it might work!” Yuna beamed, more hopeful than Yangchen though either had any right to be. "Okay, so we'd split into two teams, and then hide in pairs with one person from each team, and whoever's teammates found them first won, right?" 

"Um, yeah, but I think these people are a little better at hiding than we were when we were ten, Yuna." 

Yuna shook her head. "No, not that. Ryu and I had a system whenever we played,” she explained. “If either one of us was the hider and we were on the same team, we’d find random things in the halls to move just a little bit out of place, and if we caught them all, they’d lead us to wherever the other was hiding." 

"I _knew_ you were cheating!" suddenly Yangchen was entirely distracted and entirely incensed. "You little-"

"Anyway, it's entirely possible that he might've done that to let me know where they took him," Yuna finished. 

“Do you really think whoever abducted him is dumb enough to stop and let him move the furniture around in the halls?”

“No, but we got good at moving stuff. Subtle,” Yuna said. “Not even Izumi ever noticed, and no one knew we were doing it. And I think…”

“You think he did that here, too,” Yangchen sighed. “Seriously, Yuna. You spent days crying over how helpless you felt and you think he went and did all that, expecting you to rescue him?”

“Well, it’s the only lead we’ve got,” Yuna said, and with that, she pulled her sister out into the hall by the arm and scanned it for anything out-of-place. Shaking her head, she backtracked towards their bedchamber, where he’d last been seen, and glanced around, her eyes settling nowhere.

They finally landed on a black lacquered urn just an inch too far to the right, one that easily could’ve been bumped out of place by accident or made to look like it had. Her eyes lit up.

“I was right!” she murmured, and her sister, rolling her eyes, couldn’t disagree.

* * *

“Okay, so this is where the trail goes dead.”

“Yuna, you’ve said that five times,” Yangchen sighed. They’d backtracked to this point – the last one where Ryuji had left anything out of place – at least that many times, and there was no indication after the potted plant his carefully careless foot had knocked over that he’d ever been in any of the halls branching off from this one in either direction. “You know there’s almost no chance he’s even _in_ the palace, right?”

“But if he isn’t-“

“There isn’t anything we can do,” Yangchen finished.

“So use your seismic sense, then!” Yuna glared at her sister. “Figure out if there’s any unusual movement or…anything that might be people, in here or outside.”

“Not going to do anything, but I might as well try,” Yangchen muttered, planting her foot and letting the vibrations of the air and earth travel up her legs, through her torso, up her spine, until she could see clearly in her mind’s eye.

Somewhere below, a scuffle of feet caught her attention, and she realized in a split-second what they’d been missing.

“The trail goes cold here because they didn’t leave _or_ keep going,” Yangchen realized, keeping her feet planted to track the movements of those below. “And it makes sense. Why risk taking him outside of the palace when you could take him _below_ the palace?”

“You mean…they’re undergound?”

“Someone is,” Yangchen muttered, “and we’re not over a tunnel.”

“So…” Yuna prompted.

“There’s only one way that they could’ve gotten down there,” Yangchen explained.

“Earthbending,” Yuna realized, her eyes widening. “Of _course._ They just…tunneled beneath and then sealed up the floor above themselves!”

"It had to be one of the Earth Queen's people." Yangchen nodded. “Lucky I decided to come, aren’t we?”

“You’re the best, Chennie,” Yuna said with a half-smile. “Now get us down there.”

* * *

“Spymistress, this can’t wait!”

“Not now, Agent Cheng,” Hina snapped, not even looking up at the intelligence agent who’d thrown her office doors open just seconds earlier.

“But Spymistress-“

“You’re supposed to be finding the Prince, Jieying!”

Agent Cheng startled at the use of her given name but didn’t budge. “One of the agents assigned to the Matori Province just got back,” she said, and Hina _finally_ looked up. “Agent Cai. It’s a miracle he’s even alive.”

“What happened?” that, at least, Hina knew to take seriously.

“Another bandit raid,” Agent Cheng said. “Last night. The next morning, several towns put out ultimatums demanding that anyone with Earth National heritage leave immediately or face certain death, and…” she inhaled, uncharacteristically shaky. “And there was another round of attacks when most of them didn’t leave.”

“And that’s how this agent was injured?”

“Mistaken for an Earth National and stabbed in an alley,” Agent Cheng told her.

“That’s extremely concerning, but why couldn’t it wait until the Prince was found?”

“Because Agent Cai wasn’t the only one who returned to Caldera,” Agent Cheng said.

“What exactly are you implying, Jieying?” Hina asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Refugees, Spymistress.” Agent Cheng dipped her head gravely. “Fleeing in the thousands, and most of them flooding into Caldera City.”

“And what of the Earth Queen’s remaining delegates?” Hina asked.

“They were escorted home yesterday, as you know.”

“And had they made it past the border when the attack was reported to have taken place?”

“Uncertain, Spymistress,” Agent Cheng replied. “But we know that they were not seen in any of the villages where our agents are stationed.”

“And what of the refugees? Where are they staying?” Hina asked, nervously twirling a reed pen between her fingers. _As if I needed another thing to worry about,_ she thought bitterly.

“They seem to be setting up some sort of makeshift camp just outside of the city,” Agent Cheng told her. “And that is the other thing I needed to address.”

“What, the camp?”

“No, the refugees themselves.” Agent Cheng picked at her cuticles. “A group of them is on their way to the palace, trying to secure an audience with the Fire Lord and Lady.”

“Oh, Agni,” Hina muttered, “really? _Now?”_

“It would appear so. And…”

“Yes?”

“One of the refugees awaiting said audience has been claiming that she’s your aunt.” 

* * *

“This pretty much has to be the Earth Queen’s doing, so you need to stay alert,” Yangchen instructed as she shifted stone to let them down. “Minister To and San traveled with a few Dai Li agents. They’re probably going to be waiting.”

“Okay, and?” Yuna stepped down and gracefully softened her landing, hitting the ground on a cushion of air and cradling Yangchen as she followed.

“Just let me do the fighting, okay?”

“Yangchen, it’s _my_ husband we’re rescuing-“

“And you’re in absolutely no position to be fighting anyone!” Yangchen found herself raising her voice, cringing as it bounced off the walls of the stone tunnel they’d dropped into.

_That took skill,_ she observed, biting her lip in apprehension. No amateur Earthbender would’ve been able to make these tunnels and it didn’t bode well for them.

“Keep your voice down,” Yuna hissed, but it was too late, and the two edged against the wall as the sound of footsteps. The sisters glanced at each other in the dimness, shuddering at the cold in the tunnels, and wordlessly adjusted their stances.

  
They’d come to fight if they had to.

“ _You,”_ Yangchen hissed when the owner of those footsteps came into view.

“Me?” Prince San asked, his voice oddly clipped and his posture stiff as he stopped in front of them.

Yuna stepped out in front of her sister, throwing out a protective hand to hold her back. “Tell us what you did with Ryuji,” she said, her voice dripping with ice.

“No,” San said flatly.

“Fine, then.” Yuna shifted her stance, readying to fight back. “If you won’t cooperate, we’ll just have to work around you.”

“I wouldn’t recommend that, Lady Oyama.”

“Well, you don’t get a say,” Yuna hissed, pinning him to the wall under a wall of air. “Yangchen, go!”

“I’m on it,” Yangchen replied, taking off down the tunnel while Yuna held back San. She disappeared into the blackness, and Yuna took a deep breath, rapidly tiring. It had been months since she’d trained this way; it hadn’t been safe to bend like this during pregnancy and she’d been too exhausted these past months to train. She’d forgotten how exhausting it was.

“Are you just going to keep doing this?” San asked, only slightly annoyed. “Wait, don’t answer that. I already know you are.”

“How, though?” Yuna asked, concentrating her restraints on his hands so he couldn’t bend. “If you’re the only one here-“

“Who told you I’m the only one?”

“I’m not being attacked by Dai Li agents, so I think it’s a safe bet,” Yuna shot back, throwing glances down the hall every few seconds to see if Yangchen hadreappeared. “So why you?”

“This very ironic,” he said, deflecting. Yuna knew not to take the bait but she knew anyway.

“And why’s that?”

“I never thought I’d be attacked by an Air Nomad,” San said, still a little mechanical but sarcastic now. “Let alone the Avatar’s daughter.”

Yuna had, quite frankly, had enough of this punk.

“I’m not attacking you,” she said coolly. “And I may be the Avatar’s daughter, but…”

“Um. But what?”

She let him go, and San stumbled forwards. As soon as he did she flung him into the wall and his head knocked against stone.

“But I’m also the Spymistress’.”

* * *

“We haven’t even found Ryuji yet!” Zuko protested. “How are we supposed to think about-“

“I’ll do it.” Izumi rose from her seat, scanning the room.

“Izumi, are you sure?” Hina asked. “You’re not trained for this.”

  
“Well, my parents can’t do it, and someone has to,” Izumi said. “So I will. I’ll go talk to those refugees.”

“And I’ll go with her,” Aang said. “I know what to do.”

“Okay,” Hina acquiesced with a sigh. “But be careful, Izumi.”

“Hina, they’re desperate people fleeing persecution. I don’t think they want to hurt me.” Izumi shook her head resolutely.

“She’s right, Hina,” Katara spoke up. “Someone should meet with them and I know she can do it.”

“Thank you,” Izumi said, sinking back into her chair with an uncharacteristic lack of resolve. “I’ll figure something out, I promise.”

Head reeling, she wondered if that was a promise she could keep.

* * *

With one supremely irritating Earth Prince dealt with, Yuna took off down the tunnels and nearly collided with Yangchen as she came up the tunnel in the opposite direction.

“He’s kind of a wreck,” Yangchen said, and only then did Yuna’s eyes focus enough in the dark to notice that Ryuji clung to her arm, his eyes wide and dazed and his legs barely supporting his body. “Probably drugged because there was only one-“

“Ryuji,” Yuna murmured, and at his name, her husband finally looked up.

  
“Yuna?” he said, his voice hoarse and weak, and her heart clenched at the thought of how it had gotten that way. She rushed forward and he fell into her arms, his heavy head dropping against her shoulder as she held him. “Why…why did you come for me?”

“You needed me,” she said simply, knowing he probably wouldn’t understand in his daze, and her arms tightened around his back.

“My Yuna,” he murmured against her shoulder, half-delirious, half-asleep, and her heart clenched.

“My Ryuji,” she said, pressing him closer. “What did they do to you?”

“Um, this is very touching, but we need to get out of here,” Yangchen cut in. “I think we’re both going to need to help him walk. Can you do that?”

“Of course.” Yangchen shifted Ryuji so he was slumped against her shoulder, and Yangchen took the other; she bent the floor back up to reach the hallway and they stumbled out of the darkness.

* * *

She did not let go of him.

He was safe now, and Yuna could cry, and she could hold him even as his mother bent the tranquilizing toxin from his veins. She could fall asleep with her face pillowed in his shirt, knowing he would wake the next morning, and she did, clinging to him, her cheek rising with each breath he took.

And she woke to soft sunrise and groggy blue eyes following her.

“I’m sorry,” Ryuji said when he saw her stir, fingers brushing through her hair.

“For what?” Yuna finally released her grip on him so she could twist to look at him. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I told you I’d protect you,” he said softly. “I thought that if I went with them, I could keep them away from you, but instead…” he sighed. “Instead I made you come after me.”

  
“You didn’t _make_ me do anything,” Yuna said archly. “I _chose_ to come because you needed me.”

“Yuna…”

“You left our Hide-and-Explode clues,” she said after a moment, tears pricking the backs of her eyes yet again. “You had to know I’d come for you.”

“I still hoped you wouldn’t have to,” he said, sounding so defeated that Yuna could do nothing but wrap her arms around him and hope her warmth would soothe him.

  
“But you had to have known that I would,” she said, her breath ghosting his skin as she spoke. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have ‘accidentally’ knocked that plant over.”

“I did,” he admitted. “But-“

“No, Ryu, no ‘buts.’” She pressed her finger to his lips to quiet him and he stared at it for a moment before he took her hand in his and kissed her fingertip, then each of its partners. “We promised we’d take care of each other-“

“And you told me you felt helpless,” Ryuji sighed as he set her hand back against his chest. “I should never have put you in a situation to have to do that.”

“You didn’t choose to be abducted, Ryuji. Stop being ridiculous.” She maintained the irritated edge to her voice in fear that the tears threatening to fall if she didn’t would make it worse.

“I’m still sorry,” he said with a guilty sigh.

There was nothing to say to that, so Yuna simply lay there, leaning into his gentle, aimless touches. He’d stroke her hair, then brush his fingers along the contours of her face; when he tired of that he’d trace her tattoos and then kiss the tip of the arrow on her forehead before he repeated the pattern, and Yuna stretched out contentedly against him like a cat in the sun. She pressed her body as close to his as she could, and she tried to let his familiar skin distract her from the fact that things could have been far worse than they had been. And when she could take it no longer, she leaned up to kiss him.

“My Ryuji,” she murmured when she pulled away, her hands tracing his lips in the absence of her own lips on his.

It was such a simple endearment, but neither had the slightest difficulty peeling back the layers of meaning in a pet name so spare in words. She had, truly, been his, and he hers, for longer than either could remember; they’d been each other’s since they knew what it meant to belong.

Both knew it was inevitable, the risk she’d taken, if the consequence of failing to act would be the loss of the person she’d prayed she wouldn’t have to live without.

“My Yuna,” he breathed, pressing his lips to the divot behind her ear and smiling against her skin when she squirmed happily in his arms.

But the moment of silent contentment didn’t last.

“Hey, why haven’t we been interrupted yet?” Ryuji asked. “I just realized it’s-“

“Quiet? Yeah.” Yuna turned to face him again. “Sana and Sakari are watching Sora.”

Ryuji narrowed his eyes. “Are you _sure_ that’s a good idea?”

  
“No,” Yuna groaned. “But your parents are handling…stuff, I’ll catch you up later, and I feel like Kya and Hyun would be the worst possible people to ask, and my parents and Izumi are meeting with refugees-“

“Wait, _what?”_

“Again, I’ll catch you up later. Anyway, none of them could do it, so that left Sana, Sakari, and my brother. I figured Sana would stop Saki from doing anything stupid, so I just…” she shrugged. “He’ll be okay, but you needed to rest.”

“I could use it,” Ryuji said gratefully. “My head feels fuzzy.”

“Well, they used some sort of tranquilizing drug on you, so it isn’t surprising.”

“And I’m guessing San’s locked up somewhere?”

Yuna cringed. “Actually…”

“ _Seriously?”_

“Um…turns out that airbending someone into a wall at the right angle can undo Dai Li brainwashing, so he’s, uh… _detained elsewhere_.” She let the words sink in and braced herself. “He says he didn’t want to do it and he’s trying to defect now that he isn’t brainwashed anymore, so my mother is interrogating him to make sure he means it.”

“And you believe this?”

“Something was really off about him. You had to have seen that.” Yuna tilted her head. “I mean…it’s possible. I doubt he’s smart enough to fake it, anyhow.”

Whether he had or hadn’t, she couldn’t tell. “Truth really is stranger than fiction,” he muttered, wrapping his arms around her, and Yuna was inclined to agree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Hina interrogates San and reunites with her aunt; Izumi and Aang meet with the Matori refugees; Kya's answer to an unexpected offer surprises even herself.


	18. Make Me Forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hina interrogates San. Kya comes to an important conclusion - and an important turning point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rarely like my romantic scenes, but oh my gosh I LOVE this one. It probably isn't even that good but writing it felt...magical. For me, it's as close as I've ever gotten to replicating the feeling of being in love on page.
> 
> I hope you like it.

“So this is how it is.” Hina set her hand on the back of San’s chair, inches from his shoulder. “You kidnap the prince and cry ‘brainwashing’ when you realize you won’t get out of it.”

San’s listless green eyes went wide. “No!” he cried, trying to free his hands from their restraints so he could gesture for impact. “I know what this looks like, but I _swear_ I didn’t want to do it!”

“It’s a little hard to prove motives,” Hina sighed, releasing the chair so she could circle him. “You’re going to need to find a better argument for your innocence than than.”

She almost felt bad, scaring a man her daughter’s age within an inch of his life, but it came with the territory of attempting to kidnap a member of the royal family.

“So what exactly are you claiming happened to you?” she continued, stopping her pacing in front of him.

“The Dai Li,” San said, all too eager to clear his name. “Minister To was trying to get me to…help with his plan…and-“

“What plan?”

“Uh, I don’t really remember,” San admitted, scratching his head. Hina wanted to throttle him but he seemed sincere, and she rocked back on her heels with a heavy sigh. “Something…something about…the border?”

“The Matori Province?” Hina’s eyes widened. “ _You_ were part of his plans for the Matori Province?”

It was almost impossible to believe it given how dim the boy appeared to be, but Hina had no choice but to ask. It was exactly the kind of impossible thing that she had found to be entirely too possible more than once in her career.

“Yeah, that!” San’s face brightened with recognition. “I don’t really remember, something about a war…”

“Minister To wants to start a war?” Hina narrowed her eyes. “Why would kidnapping the prince-“

“I dunno,” San said helplessly. “I told him I didn’t want to kidnap anyone, so he had the Dai Li…do their thing, I don’t know. And then everything got all fuzzy, and I woke up in the basement with my head all smashed-up.”

“That was my daughter’s doing,” Hina told him, unsure whether she was saying it out of pride or simply to catch him up on what he’d missed. “It seems that being airbent into a wall did that brainwashing in quite nicely.”

“Huh.” San scratched his head again. “So _that’s_ why Minister To was always telling me not to hit my head?”

Hina would’ve laughed if she weren’t so close to done with her interrogatee. “That would be why, yes.”

“So…I swear, I didn’t know anything,” he concluded. “And my mother is crazy and I want to help you and…” he looked almost pathetic, his eyes huge as he looked up at Hina. “Please let me help you.”

“Help us, or take asylum with us?” Hina asked, narrowing her eyes. His wide, sad eyes bore a hole in her heart, but she could not show it now, could not let this Earth Prince know how his green eyes reminded her of her own, of her Yangchen’s, of her mother’s. “If you can’t remember what Minister To was planning now, who’s to say you will if we agree to take you in?”

“I’m another thing my mother and Minister To can’t use against you,” San said, blinking up at her with a face almost childlike in its fear even at twenty-six.

That face, Hina swore, would bring her undone, and she loosed the bindings at the Prince’s hands.

“I don’t trust that you’ll be useful, but I know you’re sincere,” she said, meeting his eyes and watching with something close to affection as they warmed at the gentleness in her own. “Why are you so afraid of your mother?”

“She doesn’t care who she hurts.” San clenched his fists. “Me, Hyun, her servants and officials and all the random Earth Kingdom citizens she’s let starve…none of them mean anything to her.”

Neither Hina’s political savvy nor her maternal intuition let her ignore him now. “Your brother…did he know about this?”

San shook his head fervently. “No, Spymistress, I swear he didn’t,” he insisted. “They wanted him to marry Kya so the Fire Nation couldn’t attack them, and he wouldn’t do it if he knew…if he knew…”

“If he knew what?” Hina asked, almost disgusted with the gentleness in her own voice. She wondered why she’d let this boy and his sad green eyes soften her when she knew what she’d come to do but her heart ached for him, this boy who’d so clearly never known a mother’s love.

“If…if he knew it was all a lie,” San said, casting his eyes down to the floor.

“So Hyun married Kya, not knowing he was a political pawn,” Hina thought aloud, her breath catching in her throat of its own accord.

“He’d never hurt her. He’d never hurt _any_ of you.” Now San’s eyes flashed. “I know what _I_ seem like, but I swear on every spirit there is that my brother knew _nothing_ about this.”

“Hm. You seem quite convicted of that,” Hina observed. “Protecting him?”

“He can’t go home, Spymistress,” San implored. “They…she…I don’t know what they’d do to her if…if…”

“The Queen?”

“Mother,” San confirmed. “I…she’s never cared whether she hurt him in the past and now that he’s failed her – _because of me –_ I…I can’t, Spymistress.” He hung his head. “I can’t let you send him home. _Either_ of us.”

“She hurt him?”

_As if I needed more reasons to loathe her,_ Hina thought, though she had no special fondness for the boy. He was pleasant enough, and he treated Kya well, but…well, she’d never had a great deal of patience for those who turned to brawn before brains.

But some familiar evil in the idea of Lian turning her power against her own son rang too true not to raise bile in Hina’s throat.

“I was the lucky one,” San said, his face falling in shame. “Hyun…he didn’t get off so easy.”

Hina crouched in front of San’s chair, where he’d stayed seated even after she’d removed his restraints. “He’s safe here,” she reassured him. “I can’t promise that Kya’s going to want to stay married to him after this all gets out, but after the kindness he’s shown Zuko and Katara’s children, I have no doubt that he’ll always have a place here if he isn’t safe at home.”

“Okay.” San’s shoulders sagged in what could have been relief but could’ve been sadness, too, that he hadn’t been guaranteed the same asylum. “Just…please don’t make him go back.”

“San, when I tell Fire Lord Zuko about this, he’s probably going to be hard-pressed not to kill your mother where she stands.”

“She’d deserve it,” San said hotly. “And that’s why I need to help you, even if I can’t do much good.”

Hina had only to look into his eyes to know that she couldn’t refuse him.

* * *

Kya had seen this coming a mile off. The moment Yangchen blurted out the words “only could’ve been an Earthbender,” she’d known what was coming.

What surprised her was that she dreaded it.

Four months ago, she’d have done anything to hear the words she knew her parents would say as the stood in front of her, exchanging heavy looks. But now the thought made her stomach twist, and it plummeted like a waterbucket dropped into the shaft of a well.

“Hina is reasonably certain that Hyun wasn’t aware of his family’s actions,” Zuko started, hesitant to meet Kya’s eyes. “But, given what his family has been involved in, we understand if you’d rather not…be married to one of them.”

“We’re so, so sorry, Kya,” Katara cut in with a hand on her husband’s arm, her tone regretful. “I can’t believe we didn’t-“

“Mom, don’t,” Kya interrupted. “It’s not like any of us knew about this.” It almost hurt to say it when she’d spent so long waiting to hear those words, but she found that she felt lighter, too, having said them.

“That being said,” Zuko continued, “if you want to annul the marriage, you have our full support.”

The frantic staccato of Kya’s heart rang in her ears and she had to reach for the cabinet behind her to steady herself. She pressed her eyes closed, inhaling the study’s rich, smoky aroma as if it would do anything to cut through the sheer, blind panic racing through her mind.  
  
She knew she should take the offer. She’d not wanted this marriage, and a part of her wanted it even less so now that she knew why it had really occurred. A life without Hyun would mean freedom – freedom to search and find and lie beside someone she’d chosen for herself. It would spare her the headache of fielding his ridiculous questions and the strange queasy feeling in her stomach at the brush of their hands when they sat beside each other at the dinner table. She did not know if she could trust him, anyhow, and it seemed almost unfathomable to her that she could feel so conflicted.

But a life without Hyun would be duller, too. She wouldn’t laugh half as much or feel the exhilarating rush of well-meaning animosity half so often. She wouldn’t sleep easier (and she could scarcely admit this even to herself) knowing that someone slept only steps away. She’d lose her only remaining sparring partner who bent Earth. (Yangchen, she’d decided after an unfortunate incident with a broken rib three years ago, did not count.)

She’d be sending him back into the jaws of a mother who saw no evil in brainwashing her own children.

She’d never get to figure out what the words “I love you,” gasped against her tear-dampened tunic, had meant.

“Thank you,” she said shakily. “But I think it would be best if nothing changed.”

Her parents simply gaped at her for a moment, before Katara finally regained enough composure to speak.

  
“Kya, sweetie, are you sure?”

“His mother is evil,” she blurted out before she had time to think herself through it. “She brainwashes her own sons and she _hurt_ him, Mom. I can’t send him back to her.”

“Then we can give him political asylum.” Kya knew there were probably political ramifications to this that her father was overlooking in the moment but he seemed to be in no doubt of his decision. “But you don’t have to stay married to him.”

“No, I…I think it would be best,” Kya said, her voice small and almost ashamed.

“Okay.” Zuko nodded weakly. “If you’re sure.”

  
She was, but her shoulders still trembled when she took her leave, and her vision was clouded with fast-forming tears by the time she stumbled into her bedroom. She latched the door behind her and pressed her back against it, sinking to the floor and letting her face rest against her knees, tears wetting the fabric of her skirt. Four months ago, she’d have begged for this. Now she hated herself for admitting that she didn’t want it anymore.

She didn’t know how long she’d cried when a knock at her door compelled her to raise her head from her knees, but she stood, straightening her dress and trying in vain to scrub her face clean of the evidence of the conflict that raged in her mind. “Yes?” she called, pitching her voice down to try to conceal its weary shakiness.

“Kya?”

Kya’s stomach dropped. _Hyun._ She said nothing.

“Kya, I know you’re in there, but you don’t have to open it if you don’t want to.” She could hear him sink down on the other side of the door, his back pressing against the door in counterbalance to her own. “But…your parents told me what you did.”

Her breath caught and she might’ve been hearing things but Kya suspected his had, too.

“Thank you,” he murmured, so quiet she could barely hear it on the other side of the thick mahogany door. They sat in silence, then; he asked nothing of her, and she gave nothing in return. Thirty minutes they sat there, waiting for a response from the other that never came, and Kya had finally had enough.

She stood, opening the door, and he bolted to his feet, hair falling in his eyes. “Kya,” he breathed, something like wonder on his face.

“Hyun,” she replied, unsure what else to say.

For the longest of moments, they watched each other’s every movement – every wringing of hands, every flick of blinking eyelashes, every rise and fall of shoulders with shaky inhalations.

“Why?” he finally asked her.

There was only one answer she could give and she did.

“I guess I wanted to keep you around,” she said with the smallest of smiles.

“Kya…”

“Read into that as far as you’d like.” Kya gulped, wondering where this boldness – so usual for her, so strange when it happened around _him_ – was coming from. She wondered where this _feeling_ was coming from.

Maybe it was his kindness, his persistence, the way he’d let her hold him in his greatest vulnerability. Maybe it was the memory of the way he’d kissed her, his lips almost cautious against hers, or the way he’d held her that night, his gentle hands brushing her face after all was said and done and they lay beside each other.

Maybe it came from the realization that she’d never really hated him at all.

“Well, um. Thank you,” he said, staring at his feet, and when he turned to go Kya couldn’t help but reach out her hand and catch his wrist. He turned and they froze as his eyes locked on hers but the moment didn’t last; he turned, careful not to make her let go. But once more, he could not move.

A moment later, her heart racing, Kya stood on her toes and stepped closer to him, pressing her self against his chest, her face so close to his that their noses brushed.

  
“I mean it this time,” she whispered, her breath so close that it ghosted his lips.

“You mean it?” Hyun’s eyes widened before he squeezed them shut, overcome, and she did all she could think to do.

“I can’t believe I do,” Kya said, her hands coming to rest against his cheeks, “but _yes.”_

“Kya, I can’t do this again,” Hyun said, though he took no effort to move away from her. “I can’t…I can’t be someone you use when you feel lonely and then forget about, Kya. I _can’t.”_

Hurt flashed across Kya’s face, though she knew she deserved it. She dropped off of her toes, standing flat on the ground again. “I know you don’t think you can trust me,” she admitted, her hands clasped in front of her. “I get it. I’m…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“Spirits, Kya, _no,”_ he said. “It’s…it’s _not_ that. People make mistakes. I know that I can trust you. I mean…you let me cry on you.”

“I just did what any decent person would’ve done.” Kya shrugged. “Same with…staying married, I guess. I just…I couldn’t send you back to your mom.”

“That’s not what your father told me,” Hyun replied. “He said that he offered to keep me here and still annul the marriage, and you turned him down. Is…is that right?”

Kya nodded, barely looking at him.

“Then it’s not just courtesy,” he said, moving a step closer to her. “It’s not…obligation. It’s just _you.”_

“Hyun…”

“You’re a good person and yeah, you hurt me.” He sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You…I think you broke my heart. But that wasn’t _you.”_

“Oh? Did some other girl sleep with you and then run off?” Kya challenged. _Why am I doing this?_ She wondered, but she had no answer; she didn’t know why she was resisting him, still, but she did anyways. “Because last I checked-“

“That was the loneliness talking, Kya,” he said gently. “It wasn’t you.”

_But the loneliness_ is _me,_ she wanted to say, but instead she watched him helplessly.

“Then why say you can’t do this?” Kya asked, almost shy.

“Because I need to know that we’re on the same page this time,” Hyun said. “Are…are we?”

“You’re going to have to tell me what that page is.” Kya swallowed hard.

He inhaled, long and slow. “Kya,” he asked cautiously, “do…do you feel the same way about me that I feel about you?”

Kya couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t _anything_ as Hyun watched her, hope written across his face as clearly as the blush in his cheeks. Here he was, this man who’d asked for nothing while giving her everything he could – and after so much had been taken from him – and…she didn’t know what to do. Not when there was only one thing _to_ do and she didn’t know if she could.

“I think I do,” Kya admitted, and suddenly laughter was bubbling up in her throat, joy and adrenaline and sheer _relief_ breaking the surface. “ _Yes._ I do. I really do.”

Hyun’s face lit like a sky alight with fireworks, every bit as bright, every bit as brilliantly-hued, and when she met his eyes, there were tears in her own.

“Then by the Spirits, Kya, kiss me before I go crazy.”

She did, rising on her toes, and this time there was no caution in his kiss. He was all joy, kissing her as if it were the greatest privilege he could’ve won, and it was sloppy and strange but when she tangled her hands in his hair she knew that she had made the right choice. She found herself kissing him as if she were born to do it, though it had been a paltry four months since their first meeting, and when they had to part to catch their breaths, she could not conceal her smile.

“Hyun,” she murmured, her hand drifting to the collar of his tunic. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said, resting his forehead against hers. “Just…just do that again.”

She couldn’t dream of stopping now, and she couldn’t remember, afterwards, when Hyun had backed into the door, latching and locking it behind him in one fluid motion. She kissed him until neither could breathe, and again and again and again, and by the time he hoisted her up to lock her legs around his waist she was dizzy with a million things she could neither name nor describe.

The wedding night had been all caution and desperation; _this_ was something she’d never even imagined.

“What would you say to a do-over?” she asked between kisses, and Hyun nodded, too overcome to respond with words.

“Good,” she murmured, her fingertips brushing his jawline. “Then kiss me until I forget my own name.”

* * *

“You stayed.”

Hyun’s words were whispered, probably not meant to be heard, but they stirred Kya from her sleep anyway. It was pitch-dark when she woke, save for the flickering light of a single candle burning low on their nightstand, and though she could see nothing, the warmth of her husband’s chest beneath her body was enough to remind Kya where she was.

  
She blushed, but there was no need to fetch a discarded chemise this time – no need to run, no need to move at all. “I stayed,” she replied, pressing her flattened palm to the center of Hyun’s chest and her lips to his jaw.

“I love you.”

“I…I, um…”

“It’s okay, Kya. You…you don’t have to.”

“No, it’s just…” Kya sighed. “I _want_ to, but…I just…”

“Then I can wait,” he reassured her, kissing her matted hair. “But…you might have to remind me of your name first. Can’t be declaring my love to someone whose name I don’t know.”

Kya smiled, burying her face against his skin and relishing the way she could _do_ that now. “I can’t remember,” she said.

“Then I did my job,” he replied, and she could not help but kiss him for his trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Varrick voice* “you did it, Hyunya! You did the thing!”


	19. Where the End Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izumi meets a few Matori refugees with a lot to say, Newly-minted couple Hyun and Kya work to figure out whole the "being in love" thing, and the inner circle realizes that it's going to need more than resolve to defeat the Earth Queen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNINGS: non-graphic nudity, mentions of ethnic violence and involuntary displacement, referenced child abuse. 
> 
> That Hyunya scene...might be the raciest thing I've ever written. Absolutely nothing happens, and it's all about communication and boundaries and all that good stuff, but it's very much a nude scene. Zero smut but there are suggestive themes (really, it's the thematic stuff that might be a bit much, nothing is shown or described), and a very prominent lack of clothing. If you don't like that, please skip the scene that begins after Izumi finishes talking to the refugees and proceed to the one where Zuko, Katara, Hina, and Yangchen are talking at the end. 
> 
> I never thought I'd have to put in a warning for something like that, but here we are.

“Is it true?” A tiny girl with dirty clothes and gaunt green eyes stared up at Izumi, her other hand holding a slightly-older boy’s, through wide, wondering eyes. “Is it true that you’re a real live _Princess?”_

“Kimi, be _quiet!”_ the boy hissed. “You can’t just… _ask_ things!”

_Ah, so they’re siblings._

Izumi crouched in front of the girl, her heart melting and breaking all at once for the suffering written in every spec of dust on her ragged clothes. “I am,” she said, smiling when the girl’s face lit up. She pressed her hands together and inclined her head in a formal bow, as much as she could while kneeling. “And your name is Kimi, right?”

“You know my _name?”_ the girl’s eyes widened. “No _way.”_

Izumi neglected to tell Kimi that she’d heard her brother say it just a moment ago – she had enough younger siblings to know that some things were better left unsaid. Aang, talking to a group of adults who’d gather off to the side while the children clustered around Izumi, caught her eye and shot her an encouraging smile. “I hear you came all the way from Kanashimi to see me,” Izumi said, nodding. “I want to hear all about what it’s like where you live.”

Izumi almost felt guilty for using Kimi’s obvious admiration for her to get information, but she’d come to find out how she could help these people, and no one would be more honest with her than these two children. Besides, she could tell within ten minutes of meeting her that Kimi was more in need of a reason to smile than anyone she’d seen in a long time, and if a conversation with a princess was all it took, Izumi would be hard-pressed to refuse.

“It used to be nice,” Kimi’s brother spoke up. “But then it all burned down.”

“Then we went to live with Aunt Emi,” Kimi added. “She lives kinda far away.”

“She’s not really our aunt,” the boy explained. “Some lady who said she was _actually_ Emi’s niece brought us to her house when they burned down Kanashimi.”

“Wait…” something in that sounded familiar and Izumi paused to think. _Where have I heard this before?_ “Um…do you remember the lady’s name?”

  
“Um…Kyoshi?” Kimi shrugged. “She had an Avatar name, I know…”

“Holy…” Izumi narrowly stopped herself from cursing in front of the children. “ _Yangchen_ brought you here?” 

“Yangchen! That was it,” the boy said, nodding in recognition. “Yeah. She said she was Emi’s-“

“Great-niece, had to have been. Hina doesn’t have siblings,” Izumi thought aloud. “So _you’re_ the kids Yangchen told me about.”

“She told us about you?” the boy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“You made quite the impression on her, Kimi and…”

“Tomo,” the boy told her. “My name’s Tomo.”

“Tomo,” Izumi repeated. “Anyways. Yes, Yangchen’s told me about you two.” Izumi looked down at Kimi with a gentle, encouraging smile. “Did you know that lady who helped you was friends with the Fire Lord?”

“The Fire Lord?” Kimi scrunched her nose. “Mommy said the Fire Lord didn’t care about-“

“ _Kimi!”_ Tomo dug his arm into Kimi’s side, horrified.

“I’m sorry that we didn’t do more to help,” Izumi said, sincere even though it smarted to know that the Earth Queen’s refusal to cooperate was seen as her father’s fault. “But we’re going to do everything we can to keep you safe, all right?”

“That’s right,” another voice cut in, and a woman with a strikingly familiar face made her way over to the children and lifted Kimi onto her hip. “Thank you, Princess.”

Izumi stood, brushing off her clothes, and bowed once more. “You must be Emi.”

“I am,” the woman said with a formal bow. “Spymistress Oyama’s aunt.”

“On her mother’s side?” Izumi asked. The woman didn’t look like an Earth National, but her choice to shelter these two obviously Earth National children made little sense if she wasn’t.

  
Emi shook her head. “No, her father’s. I’m Fire Nation.”

“Thank you for helping these children, then,” Izumi said.

“It’s what any decent person would’ve done,” Emi said, throwing a glance over at Aang, who was speaking to a larger group. “It doesn’t warrant your thanks.”

“But it does,” Izumi pressed, then went on. “They burned down your village, didn’t they?”

“Well, I live outside of Kanashimi, so I was safe, but…yes,” Emi sighed. “And when the bandits attacked again, we didn’t know what else they’d try to do, so…we all packed up and left.” 

“And…your only plan was to flee?”

“How could we have done anything else? It was clear that we’d be killed if we stayed.”

“Well, we’re going to figure out a way to keep you safe, okay?” Izumi met Kimi’s eyes again and the girl nodded, eyes full of unearned trust. “Princess’ honor.”

_Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Izumi,_ part of her insisted, but another insisted that, even if this was one she shouldn’t be able to keep, she’d find a way to make sure she could.

One day, after all, it would be her life’s purpose to protect these people – the vulnerable and downtrodden, the ones who couldn’t protect themselves – and she intended to start now.

* * *

It was still so strange, preparing to sleep in the same bedroom as her husband, but Kya could not fight the smile from her face as she brushed out and braided her hair for the night. Her long brown plait fell against the silk of her robe – not a chemise, for chemises, she and Hyun had found in the twenty-four hours since their reconciliation, took far too long to remove – with a satisfying swish. Humming to herself, she left the washroom in anticipation and her smile only widened when she caught sight of Hyun sprawled out against the blue of their sheets.

He sat up abruptly when she entered and his eyes widened appreciatively; they’d been a million times more exposed to each other than they were now, fully clothed and half a room apart, but she couldn’t help but blush at the look nearly as intimate as any of his careful touches. “Hi,” he said weakly, a little slack-jawed.

Kya giggled. “Hey,” she replied, smiling to herself as she played with the hem of her robe.

“Um.” His eyes mapped her hungrily though he couldn’t see much of her under the loose robe. “I…um. Can I make…kind of a weird request?”

“Of course,” Kya said, swallowing hard and suddenly a little nervous. “Um…what do you want to do?”

“I…I want to look at you,” he admitted sheepishly. “Could you, um. Could you maybe…if it’s okay with you…”

“Hyun, I’m not following,” Kya said, growing more nervous by the second. Where before she’d seen warmth in his gaze, now she saw naked _want_ that terrified her.

Her stomach twisted with shame, for she couldn’t believe she’d fallen for it. _I should’ve known he’d want something from me._

“Would you, um, if it’s okay…would you, maybe…take that…” he gestured to her robe – “off?”

“Oh, um.” Kya’s face burned but she didn’t say no. “Yeah, um, give me a minute,” she said as she worked at the knot in the sash and let the robe slip down her shoulders, fluttering to the hardwood floor behind her with a barely-audible _swish._ The cool night air kissed her bare back the way her husband looked as if he wanted to, and she’d never felt more aware of her own body than she was now as Hyun’s wide, appreciative eyes took her in.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest and let her shoulders curve in on themselves, her hair hanging down to conceal her face. She shivered when she heard the rustle of sheets and Hyun’s approaching footsteps, afraid and unsure why, but no hands touched her bare skin, no lips met hers.

He stopped behind her and when he stood, she felt the whisper of silk against her skin.

“I’m sorry, Kya,” he murmured as she lifted her arm and allowed him to slip the robe back over her shoulders. “You…you look so scared, and I’m so sorry-“

“It’s fine,” Kya said flatly as she tied the sash of her robe. “It’s not like you haven’t seen that all before.”

  
“But you’re scared, Kya,” he said softly. “I…I wanted to look at you, because it’s kind of hard to…I don’t know, properly admire you when we’re…you know.” He paused, laying his hands lightly on her shoulders. “But I never wanted to make you uncomfortable, and I’m sorry, and if you don’t like it when I look at you-“

“You were looking at me like you wanted something,” Kya interrupted, her head spinning, “but you didn’t ask for anything. Why?”

“Because I already had what I wanted,” he said, lifting her chin. “I wasn’t trying to get you to do anything. You’re just…” he blushed as if he were a fourteen-year-old attempting to confess to a childhood crush and not a married man who’d done countless things he’d rather not speak of in the past twenty-four hours. “You’re _pretty._ I wanted to…to…” he stammered, scratching the back of his neck. “Well. Doesn’t everyone like to look at pretty views?”

“Oh, _Hyun…”_ a lump rose in Kya’s throat at the simple sincerity of his words. “That…that was it?”

“That was it,” Hyun said solemnly. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known you would hate that.”

“I don’t hate the staring, Hyun,” Kya confessed, her cheeks warming. “I mean…Spirits know no woman’s ever going to object to being told she’s beautiful. I just…I don’t like…being put on display,” she told him. “It feels…it feels like I’m being sized up by someone who wants something from me.”

“I’ll never do it again,” he insisted. “I promise, Kya, I won’t.”

“Is it true?” she asked, diverting the subject.

“Is…what true?”

“That you think I’m…nice to look at?”

Hyun smiled, skimming his hands along her forearms. “The nicest.”

“Aww.” She rose on her toes to kiss the tip of his nose. “You’re not bad, yourself.”

“Really?” Hyun looked genuinely surprised.

“Hyun, have you _seen_ the way I look at you?”

Hyun raised his eyebrows. “Have _you?”_

“Um…no, but I know how I _feel,_ and I can guess how that looks.” She shook her head, winding her arms about his neck. “Short answer: yes, Hyun, you are _incredibly_ handsome.”

“Mm. Handsome. I like that,” he murmured, a question in his eyes.

Kya answered with a brief, teasing kiss. “Good, ‘cause it’s true,” she murmured, laughing softly as he yawned. “Tired?”

“Exhausted,” Hyun replied.

  
“Then why aren’t you asleep yet?” Kya asked, her fingers dancing across his collarbones and up to the ridge of his shoulder. “You should be resting.”

“Without you?” it had only been a day, but Hyun already appeared to find the idea of falling asleep without her unfathomable. “Of course not.”

“Then let’s turn in,” Kya said, taking his hand and guiding him to lie down next to her. Hyun’s body curled around hers and she snuggled against him, basking in his warmth like a cat in the sun; his arms found her waist and his hands settled gently against her stomach. They were broad, and her waist small, and she’d never felt so perfectly _covered_ before as his hands spanned her waist and he dropped his chin to nuzzle his cheek against her neck.

“Love you,” he said sleepily, already drifting off.

“Goodnight,” Kya said in reply, for she knew he expected nothing of her when he said those words. But she felt that she had to say _something,_ so she awkwardly added, “uh…sweet dreams?”

“I prefer the spicy ones,” he teased, and she dug her heel into his calf.

“Silly Prince. If _that’s_ what you want, just wake me up.”

* * *

“So, let me get this straight.” Zuko crossed his arms. “Lian wants war, the refugees want asylum, and…”

“And if we want an easy answer to any of this, we’re out of luck,” Hina finished with a drawn-out sigh. “We need to delegate if we ever want to get close to solving this. You two can’t take it on alone.”

“Izumi and Aang are already taking care of the refugees,” Katara said. “They’ll need backup, I’m sure, but we can assign a few of the Ministers to that without trouble. And really, the only ones who can deal with Lian and the war she’s apparently trying to start are Zuko and I, so we don’t need to delegate that. It just comes down to…well, what to _do_ about any of this.”

“I’d suggest a regime change, but the last thing we need right now is a power vacuum,” Hina said. Yangchen, who’d asked to sit in on this meeting and been allowed to out of a combination of nepotism and expertise after her trip to the Province, caught her mother’s eye.

  
“Maybe we don’t need to create one,” Yangchen said. “Maybe if the Earth Queen has…some sort of internal discord to deal with, she and Minister To won’t be able to concentrate their efforts on the Fire Nation. Does…does that make sense?”

“Actually…” Hina raised her eyebrows. “Actually, perhaps that could work…”

“So, an insurrection?” Katara asked. “We arm a rebel group, and…then what?”

“No, not that. It’s expensive, it’s unnecessarily violent, and frankly, I don’t want to have to work around the risk of agency slack,” Hina said. “But…I don’t know, ignite popular sentiment against the Queen?”

  
“And let them arm their _own_ rebel groups?” Zuko crossed his arms in a near-perfect mirror of his wife’s posture. “Hina, any attempt we make to start a domestic uprising against Lian is going to result in violence. You can’t pretend that, by starting something to get her off of our backs, we’re not just setting her loose on her own citizens.”

“She had her son abduct yours!” Hina protested. “Why are you _not_ clamoring for retaliation?”

“Oh, believe me, I _want_ to be.” Zuko fixed the Spymistress with the stoniest glare of which he was capable. “But we can’t afford it. The more she violates our sovereignty, the closer we move to war, and the more she meddles in the Matori Province, the more people die. _Our_ people, Hina – the people we took an oath to defend. We can’t just…let them go because we want something. I thought you’d know that, but-“

“Zuko, she _needs_ to be brought to justice, and if we can do that while protecting our borders…” Hina shrugged helplessly. “What we _can’t afford_ is to go soft on her.”

“Believe me, Hina, no one wants to stab Lian more than I do, but…who knows how many Earth National civilians will die if we do that?”

“Earth National civilians are going to die whether we do this or not, Zuko. They’re already _dying._ Fleeing their homes in droves, running for their lives – forget Ryuji, why shouldn’t we be trying to avenge _them?”_

“Hina, this doesn’t even sound like you,” Zuko said, his voice a warning. “You’ve always been such a pragmatist. Why are you advocating for retribution now?”

“I’ve been around long enough to know when someone can’t be reasoned with, Zuko,” Hina sighed, her shoulders rounding in what looked like defeat. “She can’t. First she forces you to marry your daughter to her son, then she backs out of the agreement, then she orchestrates the kidnapping of your son, and now I’m starting to suspect she’s behind those bandit raids, too…we can’t overthrow her directly, but if we don’t do _something,_ things will only get worse.”

“Which is why-“

“She beats and brainwashes her own children and you expect her to be _reasoned with?”_ Hina snapped. “When we had to strip San to check for weapons, you know what we found?”

Zuko averted his eyes and Katara laid her hand against his forearm, her eyes pleading with Hina not to make him listen to this. She did anyway.

“An entire web of scars,” she said, letting the blade fall with an utter lack of remorse that she knew would haunt her later but couldn’t dwell on now. “All the way up and down his back, and you _know_ where he got those-”

“Mom!” Yangchen cut in sharply, gesturing towards Zuko, whose face was buried in his wife’s shoulder now. “ _Stop._ Just _stop,_ Mom. You know what?”

“Yangchen, not now!”

“I’m going to the Earth Kingdom,” Yangchen continued. “I’m going to get the backing of a few Earth Kingdom families with political clout who know the situation better than we do and see what they can do to stop the war, and I don’t care if it’s an unsanctioned mission, I’m _going.”_

_Thank you,_ Katara mouthed. Yangchen replied with a curt nod. She’d been planning to drop that bomb eventually and that moment – the Fire Lord on the verge of a breakdown, his best friend and most trusted advisor terrifyingly unconcerned about it – had seemed ideal.

“The Beifongs,” Katara said. “Go talk to the Beifongs. They might know what to do.”

Yangchen stood. “That was the first place I was going to go,” she said reassuringly.

“Then you’ll go with the full support of the Fire Nation,” Katara told her. “Thank you, Yangchen.”

She took one last glance at her mother, too shocked to speak, and nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting a lot of range from Hina in these late-middle chapters and I'm really enjoying the challenge of exploring sides of her that we didn't see in The Waiting Game, which focused on her younger years when she was both a bit more stoic and formal (in professional matters) and a bit more playful (in her friendship with Zuko), or When The Wait is Over, which showed her soft side in a familial setting but not much by way of her professional temperament at a slightly older age. This Hina has changed a lot: she's less formal in her professional life, but the line between her business and personal temperaments has blurred significantly in all but a few relationships - namely, those with Aang and her children - and she's a lot less lighthearted. She's seen and done things that have dented her trademark pragmatism, and we've seen that twice in the past two chapters: in ch. 18, when she's uncharacteristically soft on a prisoner because she recognizes that he was as much of a victim as his victim; and in this one, when she's not only unusually vindictive but completely inconsiderate of the fact that, oh idk, maybe telling a story about a prince being scarred by his parent is a BAD FREAKING IDEA. She's at wit's end and doesn't always have the energy not to show it anymore. The Hina we see here is still the much-vaunted Smartest Woman in the Four Nations, but she's not the pragmatist she once was, and I think that dynamic makes her a whole lot more compelling...even if it also makes me want to hit my beloved OC over the head with a frying pan sometimes. 
> 
> I hope you're liking my paltry attempts at *character growth.*


	20. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara and Zuko process what they've heard about the Earth Queen's parenting, and Zuko talks to Hyun. Gyatso seeks out Sana's advice. Katara has some choice words for Hina.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mai's dress looks a bit like an ao dai to me, so ao dai exist in the ATLA universe now. I have spoken it into being.

“I’m so sorry, love.” Katara kept her voice low, though she had no need to, as she ran her fingers through Zuko’s loose hair, scalp to tips. Though he lay against her shoulder, his hands fisted in the excess fabric of the sheets, and he hung onto the red satin with such ferocity that his knuckles went white. “I tried to tell her not to-“

“No, it’s okay,” Zuko replied, short of breath and entirely unconvincing. “I’m just…I’m so _angry_ that I don’t even know what to do with myself.”

“I know, love, I know,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around his shaking shoulders and bracing one hehind his neck so he could feel her grounding touch against his clammy skin.

This was the routine they’d fallen into over decades of nightmares and it broke Katara’s heart to know that this time, he wouldn’t be able to wake up.

“Those boys…they’re just like I was,” he told her, finally releasing the sheets and grabbing on tight to her waist. “And she… _she…”_

“I hate her,” Katara said beneath her breath, her gentle voice turned icy. “What kind of mother could-“

  
“Katara…”

She realized what she’d said and squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, pressing her husband as close to her as she could manage. “They’re safe now,” she said weakly, though she had no illusions about the utter inefficacy of her words. “ _You’re_ safe now.”

“Do you think that she…that she hurt Hyun, too?”

“Um…I don’t know,” Katara said, though Hina had told her that San claimed she had. She didn’t know if she could trust the elder Prince’s word; it was best not to upset Zuko any more than she and his Spymistress – Katara couldn’t help but seethe at the thought of her callous inconsideration – already had.

“He’s such a _good_ kid, Katara.” Now Zuko’s hands took hold of fistfuls of her inner robes. “I don’t know about San but Hyun is just so… _kind._ He’s a good man and a damn good husband and the idea of that woman laying a hand on him makes me _sick.”_

“I don’t know if she did anything to him, but she never will again,” Katara promised, her fingertips drifting down the length of his spine. “She’d have to go through palace security, then _us,_ and his brother, and Saki’s taken such a liking to him, not to mention Kya…oh, Kya would kill the woman where she stood if she knew.”

“Do you think…do you think I should talk to him?”

“About his mother?” Katara raised her eyebrows. “Um…you could, I suppose.”

“If anyone would know what to say to him, it would be me,” Zuko reasoned. “I just want him to know that he’s safe here.”

“Then maybe you should.” She kissed his hairline, smoothing back a few stray locks of hair. “If it would do you any good, I’ll take care of the meeting with Izumi and Aang” – _and the off-the-clock meeting with his wife,_ Katara thought bitterly – “about the refugees, and you can go talk to him.” 

“Thank you, Katara,” he rasped, burying his face in the collar of her robes, and she breathed in, long and shaky and full of the smoky, homey scent of the person she loved most in the world.

“Of course.”

* * *

Zuko nodded to the guards outside Hyun’s bedchamber as he approached, sure he’d be there, and they gave him a wide berth, exchanging strange glances that he wasn’t supposed to notice but did anyway. Briefly, he wondered what that was about, but it didn’t take long for the cause of their odd behavior to become entirely apparent.

“ _Hyun!”_

  
A peal of all-too-familiar laughter rang out from behind the door and several of the guards, most of whom were rather concerned for their lives, cast their eyes down.

“Hey, if _you’re_ not going to fight fair, neither am I,” a second and slightly-less-familiar voice replied. A distinctive _thump_ threw what could only be the headboard of their bed against the wall with a sickening _clack_ and the sound of something breakable crashing to the floor was followed by another burst of laughter – this time, Hyun’s deep, good-natured laugh joined Kya’s high, raucous one – and then, after a beat, silence.

More downcast eyes.

“I believe the young Prince and Princess are engaging in a pillow fight, Your Majesty,” the senior guard, Tian, informed him.

Zuko raised his eyebrows, faintly nauseous. “Is that a euphemism?”

Tian tried not to smile. “No, sir, I do not believe it is.”

“They requested a dozen extra pillows this morning,” a passing maid said as she scurried by, hands full of linens.

“Case in point, Your Majesty.”

Zuko knocked, hoping he wouldn’t regret it, and frantic giggling followed the sound. _Great._ “Hyun?” he called. “I was hoping I could talk to you.”

He could just make out a barrage of whisper-shouted entreaties from his daughter and feared the worst, but Hyun opened the door a moment later, his face flushed. “Sorry, Lord Zuko,” he said with a perfunctory bow. “Pillow fight.”

Zuko peeked into the room to see down strewn across the floor alongside the shattered fragments of what had once been an amphora of cologne next to his nightstand. “I see,” he said, frowning at his daughter’s conspicuous absence but choosing not to think about it. “I’m glad to see that you and Kya are getting along now.”

Hyun’s face lit up as he followed Zuko into the hallway, and that in and of itself told him everything he needed to know. “Yeah! She’s the best,” he said lightly.

  
Zuko felt his stomach twist at his son-in-law’s simple innocence – that the same boy who’d grown up under the iron fist of a tyrant of a mother could be so youthful, so eager to engage in a child’s pastime, so quick to fall for the wife he hadn’t wanted.

He had a good heart, that much was undeniable, and Zuko felt a swell of fatherly affection for him that quickly soured to disdain when he thought of the people who had raised him.

“She is,” Zuko agreed. “You must know I’m not happy with the way your marriage came about, but I couldn’t be happier that you and Kya turned out to be a good match.”

Hyun scratched the back of his neck, unsure how to respond, and decided on, “so, you wanted to talk to me?”

“I did.” Zuko nodded and paused to breathe, centering himself. “I wanted to…check in, I suppose. See how you’re liking it here.”

“It’s great,” Hyun reassured him. “Really. Everyone’s so nice here, and your kids are awesome, and really, Lord Zuko, I can’t complain about…anything.”

_Takes a special person not to be bothered by an unhinged family and a country on the brink of war,_ Zuko couldn’t help but think. “I’m glad, Hyun. And…you and Kya?” he tested, wondering if he’d regret it but too concerned for both of them not to ask. “Are you…I know it’s a lot to ask, but are you happy?”

“Happy?” Hyun looked a little confused, as if it were near-impossible for that to be in doubt. “Of course I’m happy!”

“No, I meant to ask if you’re happy _with Kya.”_

Hyun froze in the middle of the hall, green eyes wide with earnestness. Zuko couldn’t help but stop and meet his gaze, unsure whether to be impressed or worried by his expression.

“Lord Zuko, I _love_ her,” Hyun said with every ounce of gravitas he could muster. “I’ve never been happier in my _life.”_

_Well. That’s an unexpected turn._ Zuko had known the Prince had feelings for his daughter, but he’d never expected such a brazen confession, let alone one so earnest. “That’s good to hear, Hyun.” He couldn’t help but smile – young love truly never did get old. “And how does Kya feel about you?”

“Well, um, I think…I think she likes me a lot,” Hyun said, his face almost adorably confused. “But she hasn’t said she loves me yet, so…I dunno.”

“Well, I think she likes you a lot, too,” Zuko replied, trying to disguise the amusement in his voice.

They walked on until they reached a deserted breezeway and Zuko unlatched the veranda doors so they could step out onto the stone outcrop, latching it behind them. “And…is it good to be away from home?” he asked cautiously, unsure if Hyun would take his hint.

Hyun nodded, leaning his elbows against the railing. “Yeah. I think so.”

“I’m glad. I was hoping your transition would be going smoothly.”

“It is,” Hyun said, his eagerness ebbing away into something a little closer to melancholy. “There wasn’t much to miss about Ba Sing Se, anyway. Creepy ministers, whiny nobles, nothing to do, my _mother…”_ he shook his head. “It wasn’t great.”

“You…don’t have the best relationship with your family, do you?” Zuko asked, edging towards the subject carefully.

“Well, San’s kind of a jerk, but I don’t hate him or anything.” Hyun shrugged. “My father died when I was little, and my mother is…my mother, so there wasn’t really much family left _to_ have a good relationship with.”

“I’m sorry, Hyun.” Zuko patted his shoulder. “I know how that feels.”

“You do?” Hyun glanced over at him with something a little bit like surprise on his face.

“I do,” Zuko said. “My mother disappeared when I was young, my father was…a terrible man, and my sister was so far under our father’s influence that she took on some of his worse traits. So…it was me and my Uncle, for a while.”

“Oh.” Hyun picked at his cuticles as if he’d heard this before and was embarrassed to have forgotten it. “I’m really sorry.”

“Well, it’s something we have in common, I suppose,” Zuko said. “Well…that and one other thing.”

“What?”

“Second chances,” he said with a bittersweet smile. “I got mine when I joined Aang and our other friends, and another when I married Katara. And you…well, you might not know it, but you got one when you came here, too.”

“A second chance at what?”

“Family. Home. Unconditional love.” Zuko shrugged. “We haven’t had you for very long, Hyun, but we all love you. You know that, right?”

Hyun looked up at Zuko with utter bewilderment, and for a moment he said nothing, unmoving. But he turned abruptly, a moment later, and threw his arms around his father-in-law, nearly knocking him into the railing with the unexpected force of his embrace.

Zuko couldn’t have cared _less_ about Hyun’s utter contempt for protocol. After a moment of shock, he wrapped his arms around Hyun in kind.

“Thank you,” the younger man said, his words muffled by Zuko’s robes.

“You’re family, Hyun. No need to thank me.” Zuko patted his back. “And…nothing your _other_ family does is going to change that.”

Hyun said nothing, pulling back and peering up at Zuko as if reading the lines of his face. “There’s another thing we have in common,” he said.

  
“What’s that?”

“Scars,” Hyun said, his eyes sinking down to his feet.

“What do you mean?”

“On my back,” Hyun said, clearly not wanting to elaborate. “I can’t exactly show you, but…all over.” He hung his head. “Please don’t tell Kya. I...I don’t want her to worry about me.”

“Hyun, I’m…I…you deserve _so much better,_ Hyun.”

“It was my mom, at first,” he said, his voice small. “Whenever I was bad. And then when I got older she said she didn’t have the stomach for it and she’d make one of the guards do it.”

“Oh, Agni, Hyun-“

“They never wanted to do it.” Hyun interrupted, wincing as if it stung just to say the words. “None of the guards ever wanted to beat a prince but she’d threaten them if they didn’t, so they did, and now I can’t ever let my wife see my back because it’s all cut up, and…” his voice broke and he couldn’t meet Zuko’s eyes. “I don’t know, you have a scar too.” Hyun shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry if it’s rude to point it out, but I’ve never known anyone else with one. I mean…except San, of course, but…I guess I just thought you’d get it.”

  
“I do get it,” Zuko said, fighting to keep the ice of sheer, unadulterated rage from creeping into his voice, and he pulled Hyun into his arms once more.

  
Some moments took more than words, true, but more than anything, he feared that he had no idea what to say to ease this man’s pain when he still didn’t know what to make of his own.

* * *

“You good, Gy?”

Gyatso startled at the sudden voice from behind him. “Um, yeah, why would I, uh…not be?” he asked, suddenly going hot for no reason at all. A breeze tousled the branches of the wisteria tree that hung over the stone bench he sat on, but it did nothing to cool him.

“You’re staring into the middle distance with a dead-eyed look on your face.” Sana stood in the gateway to the walled garden, her arms crossed over her lilac _ao dai_ , and he turned, watching her fidget with its belt for a moment. “Something on your mind?”

“Were you…looking for me?” Gyatso asked, narrowing his eyes. Suddenly _that_ seemed his most pressing concern.

Sana shrugged. “No, but you left the gate open, so I had to come see what was happening. No one uses this garden.”

“Oh. Uh, nope. Nothing’s happening,” he told her with an unconvincing smile. “Just…thinking.”

Sana dipped her head and didn’t bring it back up. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

“Oh, uh…no, not at all,” Gyatso said, surprised to find that he liked the idea of company right now. He moved over on the bench to make room for her. “Come. Sit.”

Sana smiled shyly at his invitation and accepted, taking a seat a few inches away from him and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She was careful not to touch him but Gyatso, oblivious to her caution, bridged the distance, resting his head on his friend’s shoulder. He felt her stiffen, but soon she relaxed and set her hand gingerly against the small of his back.

“Do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?” she asked, finally, when she’d managed to regain her composure.

“Everything,” he said drily. “There’s about to be a war on, there are refugees flooding the city, my sister’s in the Earth Kingdom after she and Dad almost got killed on her last trip, my mom’s acting weird, my other sister has a baby and her husband got kidnapped, I went to the kitchen for some fire flakes and walked in on Kya and Hyun kissing in a pantry and now I’d do _anything_ to unsee it-“

“Wait, you _did?”_ Sana’s eyes lit up. “Aww, I _knew_ they’d fall in love!”

Gyatso shook his head fondly at the open elation on his friend’s face. Her round, dark cheeks were rosy with excitement and her golden eyes were bright, and though it felt almost traitorous to admit it to himself, Sana…

Well, Sana had always been pretty, but she was old enough now to be _beautiful._

“…and I guess I’m just mad at myself,” he finished. “Because…how could I have been so blind? I just got so focused on a crush that was never going to work out that I completely tuned out the _entire world.”_

“Not gonna lie, that was a pretty bad decision.” Sana rolled her eyes, though the gesture wasn’t without fondness. “But…I mean, learning, right? Growth?”

“I still don’t know if I’m over her.”

“But you aren’t thinking about her as much, right?” Sana’s hand drifted to his forearm, though she flinched and took it back the minute she realized what she’d done.

“No, I’m not,” Gyatso admitted. “We…we talked, I told you that.”

“You did.” Sana nodded. “And?”

“It helped, I guess, the closure.” He shrugged. “But obviously the feelings take longer to get rid of.”

“Yeah.” Sana sounded a little bitter and she looked down at her sandals. “I’ve been trying to do that, too.”

“Really?” Gyatso’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t know you liked anyone.”

“It’s not important,” Sana grumbled. “But, um…was there anything you wanted to talk through?”

“What, besides this mystery guy you aren’t telling me about?”

“ _Gyatso_.”

  
“Okay, fine,” he huffed, elbowing her playfully. “I’m worried about my mom, I guess.”

“What for?” Sana asked, moving back across the space between them to lean against his shoulder.

He began, and he couldn’t bring himself to be bothered when her arms found their way around his waist, nor when his eyes began to well with tears.

He was safe here, with her, and she knew it as well as he.

* * *

“I can’t believe you’d be so _callous,_ Hina. What’s the matter with you?” Katara demanded, arms crossed and feet planted. “You’re his _best friend._ How could you have not realized-“

“Oh, I realized, all right,” Hina snapped. “I _realized_ that if I didn’t say something, you weren’t going to understand how much this mattered, and _nothing_ was going to get done!”

“So you saw fit to remind my husband of the childhood trauma he’s been trying to work through _the entire time you’ve known each other?”_

“Katara, I am at my _wit’s end._ My family’s in danger, my _country’s_ in danger, we’re working with a totally unpredictable adversary whose every move has caught us completely off-guard, there’s a war about to break out, there are probably enemy agents loose in the palace…you can forgive me for being a little shaken-up!”

“That’s not an excuse to twist the knife, Hina.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but-“

“If you were _sorry,_ you would show it.”

“Katara, there’s only so far you can push a person before she snaps! I’m sorry it happened then, but it was-“

“I’m not interested in your excuses, Spymistress.”

“-inevitable.”

“Good day, Spymistress.” Katara turned to leave, barely concealing the utter contempt on her face.

“Goodbye, Fire Lady.”

* * *

Hyun didn’t speak when he stumbled back into his room an hour after he’d left it, and Kya’s heart sank.

“Oh, Hyun,” she murmured the moment she saw his red-rimmed eyes, standing and crossing the room in only a few steps. Gratefully, he fell into her waiting arms, letting her hold him, gently rocking on her feet from side to side. “Do you…do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” he murmured, his hands grasping at the fabric of the oversized green tunic she’d stolen from him.

“All right,” Kya said, guiding him to the bed and lying down first so he could settle against her. “Here.”

“Kya…” he rasped, clinging to her waist as he buried his face in her – _his_ – tunic. Normally he’d be enraptured by the sight of Kya in his clothes, but now he was too worn to so much as notice.

“Yes, Hyun?” she asked gently.

( _Yes, baby?_ Or _yes, darling?,_ she’d almost asked, but it had seemed so intimate, so _wrong_ in a moment like this. Now was not the time to push boundaries.)

“I…” he could barely bring himself to speak. “Hold me,” he finally choked out.

“Of course,” she said, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders and pulling her husband close. She pressed her chin against his shoulder and he went limp at her touch. “I’m here, Hyun. I’ve got you.”

She wanted to probe, wanted to ask what was going on, if her father had said something to take the mirthful happiness of their last meeting and turn it on its head. But he did not need her questions now; Hyun needed her touch, her presence, and she willingly gave it to him.

“It’s going to be all right,” she murmured as she stroked his hair. “You hear me, Hyun? You’re safe here. I’m going to be here with you however long you need me.”

He nodded against her hand and held on tight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Yangchen arrives in the Earth Kingdom; Aang talks to Hina about her abnormal behavior; romance crumbs because this is getting dark as heck and I can't take it without a little fluff.


	21. A Star is Brightest Before Collapse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuna and Ryuji miss home. Aang tries to talk to Hina about her abnormal behavior. The Earth Queen learns of the failure of Ryuji's kidnapping and Yangchen does a little recruiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAN, I love Yunuji. And angry!Hina. For someone who hates being angry as much as I do, I sure did have fun writing about Hina railing against the entire world.

Yuna couldn’t remember having slept this well in ages when her eyes fluttered open without a cause in the pre-dawn hours, but all hope of sleep was swiftly dashed when she realized the bed was _cold._

Her feet hit the floor in seconds and suddenly she was on high alert, though she’d been sleeping only seconds ago. “Ryuji?” she called out groggily, reaching for the candle at her bedside and using its watery light to scan the room for her husband-

_Oh._

When eyes finally focused in the dark and she could see him standing by Sora’s cradle. Relief washed over her but suspicion quickly followed. “Why’re you up?”

He glanced up at the sound of her voice. “It’s okay, Yuna,” he whispered, trying not to wake the baby in his arms. “Go back to sleep.”

“’Yuji, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Yun.” Not even the warmth that bloomed in her chest at the sound of that name – somehow chopping the first letter off of his name and the last off of hers made for a kind of intimacy that still, after years, warmed her – could distract Yuna from the tightness in his voice. “You need the rest. I’ve got Sora.”

Yuna padded over to join him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her cheek to his back. “You’re up in the middle of the night and he wasn’t even crying.”

“I know,” Ryuji whispered, settling Sora against his shoulder.

“So…why?”

Ryuji sighed heavily, his back straightening and then rounding under Yuna’s cheek. He knew he couldn’t get out of this one. “Just…thinking too much. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Dreams again?” Yuna asked gently.

“No, I just couldn’t get to sleep in the first place. Too much going through my head.”

“Come lie down, then,” Yuna told him, unclasping her hands and stepping in front of him. “Let me help.”

She knew it wouldn’t help, for Ryuji took after his father and wasn’t likely to be snapped out of a pensive moment easily, but she wanted to try – to hold him, stroke his hair until his breathing finally slowed and he drifted off in her arms.

“Yun…”

“That wasn’t a suggestion, ‘Yuji. Bring Sora, if you want, but…come lie down.”

Ryuji sighed heavily but complied, carefully slipping into the sheets so as not to jostle Sora. Yuna lay back against the pillows and reached out her arms in a now-familiar gesture; he handed her the baby, then rested his head against her chest. She shifted Sora against her shoulder and then reached with her free hand to stroke Ryuji’s hair, not quite long enough to fan out across her chest like her own did but floppier than it had been a few weeks ago.

“Your hair’s getting long again,” she remarked, smiling to herself at the way he pressed further against her when her fingers dug into his scalp.

“Is it?”

“Yeah.” She brushed her finger along his hairline, smoothing back stray locks. “So…why couldn’t you sleep?”

“I was just thinking too much, like I said. That’s all,” he said. “Really, Yuna. I’m okay.”

“About the kidnapping?”

“It wasn’t really that traumatic.”

“You’re avoiding the question, darling,” Yuna pointed out. “And they _drugged_ you. Sure, they were lax on security, but…how could that _not_ have scared you?”

“I was drugged, sweetheart. I don’t remember anything.”

Nevertheless, Yuna kissed his forehead. “Then what’s wrong?”

“I guess…it just occurred to me that we’re not really safe here.” Ryuji shifted so that he could look up at her. “At the Air Temple, we can be pretty sure no one will come after us. But here…”

“I know,” Yuna said, resting her chin atop his head. “I was scared out of my mind when we got the news that they might be targeting us.”

“I was there, Yuna. I remember that.”

  
“Well, then you know…” she began, but she trailed off, realizing she hadn’t known what he apparently knew.

“Weirdly, I think…this made me kind of homesick,” Ryuji thought aloud. “I mean, it’s crazy, right? We lived in Ba Sing Se for college longer than we’ve lived at the Temple, but…it feels like home.”

“Yeah, it does,” Yuna admitted, tucking her arm around Ryuji’s waist. “That was…that was where I wanted to…”

“To raise our kids?”

“Careful, there, Yuji. We’ve only got one,” Yuna teased. “Don’t push your luck.”

“Says miss ‘I-want-one-of-each-type-of-bender’?”

“Ryu, stop trying to distract me with humor.”

“Right, sorry.” He sighed, then continued. “I miss the Air Temple, and feeling safe, and it’s worse now because I can’t stand the idea of Sora growing up without one of us-“

“Yuji…”

“I just couldn’t take it, Yuna.”

  
Yuna glanced down at Sora, sleeping on her shoulder, and could not help but nuzzle her cheek against his downy hair. “I couldn’t either,” she admitted. “But…our family needs us, right?”

“Do they, though?” Ryuji asked. “Because…I don’t even know what we’re _doing_ here. Not a lot of anything, I know that much.” 

“Ryuji, they need our support,” Yuna argued. “As much as I would love to, we can’t just pack up and leave.”

“But Yuna, this is what we’ve always talked about,” he countered, slipping her hand into his. “This…quiet life we wanted. You and me and our babies-“

“Baby, singular, don’t push it-“

“-living at the Air Temples…having a home there,” he finished, earnest blue eyes watching every microscopic change of her expression with rapt attention. “Not the Prince and the Avatar’s daughter, just…Yuna and Ryuji. We could have that, Yun. No one here would think anything of it if we said we wanted to go back after everything that’s happened.”

Yuna didn’t speak for a moment, formulating words that came through in her mind only as images.

They had memories there, though it had been only a year and a few months since their arrival that they’d left: falling asleep beneath the gingko trees with her head in Ryuji’s lap, laughing sleepily as he glared passing Air Acolytes into silence. The silly word games they’d make up to pass the time as Meng, her sky bison, took them to any far-flung locale in which they thought they might be able to find a hidden Airbender. Kissing in every inappropriate corner of the temple with all the frenetic energy one would expect of the twenty-two-year-old newlyweds they were. Ryuji’s shocked expression across the table when she’d told him over dinner one night that she wanted a baby, the many, _many_ inappropriate places they’d attempted to make that happen, the joyous kiss he’d planted on her lips when he smoothed water over her still-flat abdomen and felt their Sora’s heartbeat for the first time. The Acolytes’ endless teasing when they’d learned of her condition and the tunic they’d given her when her full-length robes became too cumbersome to wear-

It had been only a year, but one full of memory, and the call of the future was stronger in light of it.

“The acolytes haven’t met Sora yet,” Ryuji said, reaching over to ruffle his son’s hair. “And…”

“Eventually, Ryu,” Yuna said tiredly. “But…we can’t abandon them now.”

“I suppose we can’t.”

“Someday,” Yuna whispered again, and finally, _finally,_ they slept.

* * *

Aang liked to think that he knew his wife by now. He knew what she needed to hear when she was upset, knew where she went when she needed to think, knew which of Zuko’s awful tea puns made her laugh uncontrollably. He knew what advice she’d give their children on practically any topic before they’d even asked for it, and how to recognize the microscopic changes in her expression when she was fighting fatigue or concealing anger or trying to hold back tears. He knew how she said _I love you_ without saying it – and how she wordlessly indicated contempt, too. He knew that she hated the way she looked in red and which spots to kiss so that she’d sigh contentedly in his arms and how to read her moods almost flawlessly, gifted as she was at concealing them.

But _this_ was something even he didn’t know how to navigate.

  
“Hina?” he called, knocking at their locked door. “Hina, love, are you all right?”

He knew from the muffled sounds of tears across the door that she wasn’t; she knew he’d heard, or he wouldn’t have asked.

“I’m fine,” she called.

That, Aang knew, was as close as she’d ever get to telling him to go away. Sighing, he bent enough air through the lock mechanism to open it without blowing the whole thing apart (he’d had to learn that the hard way over the years) and swung the door open.

Hina looked up from the pillow she’d buried her face in, but only briefly. “I told you I was fine,” she said.

“You’re crying, Hina. I’m not just going to ignore that.”

Hina looked up at him, narrowing her eyes. “Did Katara put you up to this?”

Aang raised his eyebrows. “Why would Katara have-“

“Never mind,” she interrupted, once it became obvious to her that Aang knew nothing. She preferred to keep it that way.

“No one put me up to anything,” he said, taking a seat beside her. He didn’t touch her – Aang knew that, while she always claimed that she needed to be alone when what she needed was a listening ear, touch would be entirely unwelcome – and, her trust seemingly earned, Hina shifted away from the pillows, crossing her legs. “But Zuko mentioned to me that your behavior lately has been…abnormal.”

Hina tried to school her expression, but she had little success. Something like guilt flashed across her face before frustration flooded her features in its place. “What did he tell you?” she asked, averting her eyes again.

“He said you were advocating for…to put it charitably, a regime change,” Aang said, and Hina looked up with surprise at the lack of disdain in her voice. “He said you were being uncharacteristically…well, impractical. Not acting like yourself.”

“Of course he would,” she muttered under her breath. “Of _course_ I hurt him and the first thing he’s worried about is _me.”_

“Hurt him? He didn’t mention that.”

“Of _course_ he didn’t,” Hina repeated, clutching the blanket around her legs as she fought back tears. “Of _course_ everyone here is just unfailingly _good_ and I have to be the one who isn’t!”

“Hina, what are you talking about?”

“So I suggested we fund a coup. I know it’s not the morally pure answer from your perspective, but Aang…” Hina blinked up at him, seafoam-green eyes watery. “She’s trying to start a war, she violated a treaty that would’ve saved the lives of her own people, she treats her citizens like pond scum, and I don’t even want to _think_ about what she did to her sons, and yeah, I’m sorry I had to bring up the fact that the older one’s entire back is covered in scars in front of Zuko, but I _needed-“_

“She…she did that?”

“She needs to be removed from power _,_ Aang. I wish I didn’t have to be the bad guy here, but nothing is going to get better until we take her and all of her lackeys _down.”_ Hina shut her eyes. “And I really don’t need a lecture about forgiveness right now, or how violence isn’t the answer, because sometimes it’s the only answer people will listen to and I wouldn’t expect _you_ to get it but-“

“Hina, I wasn’t going to-“

“Some of us don’t get the privilege of being good, Aang!” she snapped, carefully-dammed fury suddenly bursting its restraints. “Some of us have to make the hard call, and do the bad thing, and risk the fallout because the world just isn’t safe if no one ever gets pushed to their breaking point and says, ‘I’m going to end this.’ Some of us have to make choices that _hurt_ and then sit there and take it when everyone they love loses faith in them. I am at my _wit’s end,_ Aang. This has gone on too long and hurt too many people and I’m _not_ letting it get dragged out while we find a peaceful solution! Some of us can’t be nice, or keep the peace, because if someone doesn’t step up and say that this has to end, it never will!”

Hina clutched the sheets, her breathing ragged, and her eyes, wild with fury in a trembling face, met Aang’s.

“Hina, be careful,” he said after a moment, and they fell silent.

  
She looked up, shocked – where was his condemnation? Where was his lecture about nonviolent solutions? But neither came. His face, though grave was not that of an Avatar with wisdom to impart or an Air Nomad horrified that she would condone such open violence. All she saw when she looked up at him was a husband worried for his wife.

The sheer _goodness_ of these people – Aang, biting back criticism out of worry for the woman he loved; Zuko, more concerned about an uncharacteristic outburst than his own pain; Katara, steadfastly defending her family in the face of so much uncertainty; Yuna and Ryuji, who’d go any distance to protect one another; Hyun, who’d seen a wounded woman in need of companionship where most would have seen only a difficult wife; her aunt, taking in two orphans and fleeing for their lives; Izumi, doing everything she could to grant those people protection – made her feel almost nauseous, knowing she could never be one of them.

So long as the Earth Queen breathed and war loomed, Hina Oyama could not afford to be kind.

* * *

“So we accomplished…nothing?” Queen Lian eyed the shaky-kneed courier reproachfully.

“Your Majesty, I am not qualified to report on-“

“Enough, Lai.” Minister To waved the courier away before he fainted of fright. “To answer your question, Your Majesty, no. The Oyama girl-“

“Which one?”

“The one who can airbend, Your Majesty. I can’t remember her name.”

“Neither can I. What of it?” Lian asked.

“She, as you know, is married to the Prince.”

“And this concerns us how?”

“Well, Your Majesty…” a near-undetectable trace of apprehension flashed across the Foreign Minister’s face. “She…was rather easily able to dispatch your son and retrieve the hostage.”

“Do you mean to say, Minister, that the heir to my throne is _dead?”_

“Hardly, Your Majesty,” Minister To reassured her. “The boy is fine. But, unfortunately, there was a bit of an incident during the retrieval of the hostage which…compromised him.”

Lian cursed under her breath. “What did he do?”

“The better question, Your Majesty, would be what _she_ did,” Minister To said. “We aren’t sure how, but it seems that the airbender girl undid his…treatment.”

Lian cursed again, louder this time. “And what did he do?”

Minister To paused for a moment. Even he knew better than to expect this to end well for him.

“He…chose to defect, Your Majesty.”

“ _Defect?!?”_

“It appears that he sought political asylum in the Fire Nation and his request was granted.”

“Well, he doesn’t know anything,” Lian reasoned. “He’s really not much more use to them than he is to me.”

Minister To blinked several times. He’d been bracing himself for a strong reaction since he’d heard the news, but never for _this_ one. “But Your Majesty, you have no heir without him.”

“Hyun?” Lian raised her eyebrows. “He’s useless, but he’ll do. Besides, I’d rather like to see that filthy waterbender he’s so enamored of try to run this place.”

“I suppose that is true,” Minister To replied, though the idea of _either_ of Lian’s admittedly dim sons holding the throne gave him a splitting headache. “But, ahem. Anyways. While it didn’t serve as the distraction we’d hoped it would be, I don’t think it needed to.”

“Why’s that?” Lian leaned back in her chair, appraising him skeptically.   
  
“It’s a bit hard for them to focus on us when there are refugees flooding into the city.”

“Oh, there are?” Lian narrowed her eyes. “Hm. That’ll do it.”

“It truly is ideal this way,” Minister To agreed. “If there’s a mass exodus of Earth National immigrants in the region, we won’t be accused of attacking our own people when we invade.”

Her eyes glinted. "And imagine the twist of the knife when the only people left on the land that's rightfully ours are _Fire Nationals._ They'll see how it feels." 

"Indeed they well, Your Majesty." 

“I suppose you’re right, Zhaoyin.” She smiled with the graciousness she'd never possessed an ounce of in her life. 

Minister To’s face reddened. “Your Majesty, I’ve told you not to call me that while we’re working!”

“Please, Zhaoyin, I’m the queen. I hardly think that a little flirtation on the clock is beyond my privileges.”

“Lian…”

“That’s what I like to hear.” She shot him a saucy smile. “Now, tell me more about this brilliant plan of yours.”

* * *

“Bold of you to assume I haven’t been plotting to oust the Earth Queen for years.”

Yangchen had to blink a few times just to make sure that she was awake. “Um…beg your pardon?” she asked, coughing discreetly into her hand.

Toph Beifong had a sterling reputation for bluntness, but Yangchen would’ve put openly conspiring against her sovereign solidly outside the realm of possible things she might blurt out at any given moment.

“I said what I said, kid.” Toph shook her head, crossing her arms as she began to walk. “If your mom’s trying to get rid of her, count me in. Hey, why don’t you get Katara and Suki in on it, too? Make it a girls’ trip?”

“You’re…you’re joking, right?”

“Only slightly,” Toph replied, her back to Yangchen. “Look, Chen, I get it. Something has to be done and you’re trying to spare as many of us innocent earth chumps as you can. But you left out a critical piece of information.” 

“Yes?” Yangchen asked, following her former earthbending master doggedly.

“I’m a bending instructor, sweetheart, not a politician.”

“But your family is the most influential in the Earth Kingdom!” Yangchen protested, running to catch up as Toph picked up her pace. “Surely you have the connections and resources to…I don’t know, back a coup!”

Toph finally stopped, turning back to face Yangchen with her arms still crossed. “I’d love to do that, but if I just gave a bunch of random peasants weapons and told them to take down the Queen, nothing would get done.”

“So don’t!” Yangchen cried. “Find people who are willing to fight and fund and arm and train them, and when they’re ready, set them loose!”

“They’re more likely to rampage the countryside pillaging than they are to get anywhere near Lian,” Toph countered. “I’m all for this plan, but you don’t _have_ one. I’m not going to stick out my neck and everything else I’ve got if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Then come back to Caldera with us and figure something out!”

Yangchen froze the moment she realized what she’d said, clapping her hand over her mouth in horror. _No one_ talked back to Toph Beifong, let alone she, who respected her mentor with a fervor that was almost worshipful.

But when she looked up, Toph wasn’t angry.

“You know what, kid? You’ve got a point.” She smiled, clapping Yangchen on the shoulder. “It’s been a good, long while since I had any fun. ‘Bout time I took a vacation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Zuko, Katara, Hina, and Toph discuss the Matori crisis; Kya finds out the ugly truth about her husband's family.


	22. Turning, Turning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kya discovers that there's a lot she didn't know about her husband; the Fire Nation gang plus Toph work out what to do about Lian; Lian comes to a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hyuna...man. Bottom text.

“I have to be the luckiest man alive.”

Kya smiled smugly and draped herself across her husband’s bare chest, letting her loose, untamed hair tickle his chin. “No, just the sappiest,” she murmured, stroking his bicep and resting her head against his neck so it fit perfectly under his chin. It had only been a matter of weeks now since she’d chosen to stay, but Kya had grown to love these moments with him to a degree that nearly frightened her. It amused her, almost, to know how afraid she’d once been of the vulnerability she now longed for with such intensity.

“But you can’t spell ‘sappy’ without ‘happy,’” Hyun replied, nuzzling against the top of her head.

Kya rolled her eyes fondly. “Yes, you can, Hyun.”

“Wait.” She could see the mildly panicked expression on Hyun’s face even with her view of his face totally obstructed. “You...oh. Right.” She felt his skin grow hot and giggled, linking her ankle around his calf. “Okay, um…’happy’ and ‘sappy’ rhyme? Have four of the same letters? I don’t know…you get the point, right?”

“I do,” Kya laughed. “You’re cute when you try to flirt with me.”

“I am _excellent_ at flirting!” Hyun protested, feigning outrage. Judging by the way his arms looped around her waist and pulled her close the moment she began to laugh, he hadn’t meant to sound convincing. “Oh, Spirits, I _love_ you...”

Kya squeezed her eyes shut and wished her stomach didn’t feel like it was entering free-fall the way it always did when he said those words to her and she found herself wishing she could say them back. Some invisible string held the part of her heart that wanted to respond in kind firmly closed, though, and she responded as she always did.

By kissing him breathless.

Hyun, Kya had learned, was an _excellent_ kisser, and she had decided that nothing was more alluring than a well-built man who knew how to diminish his strength when he needed to be gentle. She loved the way his hands came to settle feather-light at her hips, the smell of earth and anise that always lingered near him, the gentle warmth of his lips when they brushed against hers. It appeared to Kya that her husband was constitutionally incapable of a careless action when it came to her: every touch, every kiss was almost impossibly gentle, without roughness or demand.

(She would, frankly, not have minded a bit of the former, which she’d outright told him; the poor man had tried but could never shake the feeling that he was hurting her, and so he’d dropped it.)

“So beautiful,” he murmured when they broke the kiss, even though he wasn’t looking at her. His hand settled against the small of her back.

“Rightbackatcha, pretty boy,” Kya murmured with a kiss to his chin.

  
They lay in silence for a moment, warm and close and satisfied, before Hyun’s fingers dipped below Kya’s chin and he brought her face upwards to kiss him. She laughed into the kiss and locked her ankle around his waist to flip him; he startled, breaking the kiss, and she could not help but laugh once more at the incensed confusion on his face as he looked down at her.

“Oh, don’t look so offended,” she teased, lacing her hand in his hair. “Just get down here and kiss me.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” he replied as he began to kiss her again. Kya’s hands settled at his waist and migrated ever-so-slowly inwards until they settled at the small of his back.

And he flinched as if he’d been burned.

Hyun sat bolt upright almost immediately, breathing hard, and Kya followed suit, her heart kicking frantically at her chest at the panic on his face. “You okay?” she asked, knowing he wasn’t, as she moved closer to him to take his hands.

Hyun shook his head as if shaking off excess water. “Of course, Kya. Now, where were we?”

“Nuh-uh,” she murmured, pressing her finger to his lips to stop him. “You can’t just kiss me to avoid talking about why you just flinched like you were in pain.”

“Oh, um.” Hyun’s panicked eyes grew even wider. “I just…I…I don’t like having my back touched, that’s all.”

“Really?” Kya narrowed her eyes. “I’m sure I’ve touched your back before, and you’ve never flinched like that. Are you hurt?”

“N-no, of course not. Why would you ask?”

“Hyun, you are a _very_ bad liar.” Kya took his hands and stroked circles on his knuckles with her thumbs. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Kya, you don’t want to know,” he muttered, his head hanging. Kya had never seen him look so defeated before.

“Hyun, I’m your wife.” She held eye contact until he broke it, flinching away. _There’s that skittishness again._ “If something is wrong, or…you’re in pain, or there’s something I did that I shouldn’t have, I want to know.”

“It’s nothing, Kya, really, it’s-“

“Let me see your back, Hyun,” she requested, trying to keep her voice soft. “I’m a healer, remember? If it hurts, I can help.”

“No!” he snapped, pulling away from her and scrambling a few inches down the bed. “Please, Kya, just _don’t!”_

She knew she was upsetting him. She knew she should probably lay off. But all she could see when she looked at him was the terror in his eyes, and Kya could not stop herself from pressing further.

“Hyun, if you’re hurt-“

“I’m not hurt, Kya, and I don’t want your pity!”

“ _Pity?”_ Kya narrowed her eyes. “Why would I _pity_ you?”

“Just…forget this ever happened, okay?” his eyes began to moisten. “Please, Kya…just let it go.”

“My husband is in pain and I’m not about to let that slide, Hyun!” Kya shot back. “Please, just let me look at your back!”

He looked at her for a moment, studying her as if something of the utmost importance hung in the balance.

“You have to promise,” he said, swallowing hard, “that this won’t change anything, okay?”

“Of course not,” Kya reassured him.

“And you won’t judge me or pity me or…decide you don’t want me anymore?”

“Hyun, why would you ever think…” Kya trailed off, squeezing her eyes shut and wondering if this was what it felt like when a heart was cleaved in two. “Of course I wouldn’t. I…I would _never.”_

“And you’re sure I can trust you?”

“Yes,” Kya murmured. “Please, Hyun, just…tell me what’s wrong.”

“Okay,” he murmured with a drawn-out sigh, and he turned.

Kya tried to clap her hand to her mouth to muffle her terrified yelp, but it did very little.

Hyun’s broad, muscled back was striped with red, some welts raised, others faded with time, all scarred and crossing his back in an insidious web of evidence that something was terribly amiss.

“Hyun,” she murmured, almost wishing she’d never asked. “What…where did you get these?”

He hung his head, unwilling and unable to look back over his shoulder at her. “My mother,” he said plainly.

“Oh, Spirits,” Kya stammered, choking up. “Oh, Spirits, Hyun, I…”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.” Hyun’s head was still bowed with something between shame and defeat. “I…didn’t want you to know anyways.”

“Thank you for trusting me,” she said, her heart swelling and breaking and seething with rage all at once as tears pooled in her eyes. “I…I don’t know what to say, but I’d…you know that this could never change anything I feel about you, right?”

“I didn’t. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”

And _that_ was what broke her.

“No,” Kya sobbed, bridging the gap between them to throw her arms around his neck as she clung to him. “Hyun, _no._ She…you…I…” she shook his head, her tears following the tracks formed by his scars as they fell against his back. “I’m so _sorry,_ Hyun, and I…your own _mother?_ It’s just…it’s just _inhuman!”_

“It’s okay, Kya.”

“Stop _saying_ that!” she cried, dropping her head to bury it in his shoulder. “It’s _not_ okay. It’s downright _evil_ and the fact that they’ve made you think it _isn’t_ makes me sick!”

“Kya, baby…”

“Don’t you dare _baby_ me right now as if _I’m_ the one who needs comforting-“

“Kya, please. You’re making it worse.”

Kya froze, silent except for soft sound of sniffling as she cried against his shoulder. She sat on her knees, her stomach pressed flush against the scars on his back, and he leaned back gratefully into her as she cried; she laid down, and he followed, resting against her abdomen.

“Kya,” he finally said after a moment, “why are you crying?”

She paused, reigning in her rampaging emotions so as not to upset him.

“Because what happened to you is horrible,” she said cautiously, hoping he wouldn’t be further incensed by her choice of words.

“The same thing happened to San, but you’re not crying over him,” Hyun pointed out.

“It’s still terrible, but San’s not my husband.” She sniffled. “There’s a bit of a difference between the man I love and the man who kidnapped my baby brother, you know.”

Hyun stiffened, then scrambled to turn so that he faced Kya again. Eyes wide, he cupped her cheeks with shaky hands. “Kya, did you…did you just…?”

  
“Did I what?”

… _oh._

 _  
_Kya’s cheeks burned.

“I…suppose I did,” she said, smiling sheepishly. “I’m…sorry if it was the wrong time, or…kind of anti-climactic.”

  
“Kya,” Hyun murmured, his face alight like she’d never seen it, as if nothing had ever been _less_ wrong. “Please…say it again?”

She dipped her head in a weak nod and swallowed hard. “Hyun, I…I love you,” she said.

“ _Kya,”_ he breathed, his voice reverent and his eyes soft, holding her face as if it his palms contained the known universe.

“Hyun…” a lump of an entirely different kind rising in her throat. “Hyun, could you turn around again?”

He did not ask why but he did not complain, either, when she pressed a gentle kiss to the edge of the scar at his shoulderblade, nor when she trailed down its path and picked up at the next.

“I love you,” she murmured, every so often.

_I’m here. You’re safe. No one’s going to hurt you again,_ she always meant.

And he understood the language she spoke as if he’d known it all his life.

* * *

“Hey, I’m with Hina.” Toph shrugged, kicking her feet up on Katara’s exquisitely-polished mahogany desk. “We just gotta get rid of the Queen before she gets worse, and the easiest way to do that is from within.”

  
“But we don’t even know what her real goals are, Toph,” Zuko reminded her. “It’s almost impossible to take such decisive action against someone whose plan isn’t clear and whose motivations are even less clear than that.”

“It’s really not hard. Surprised you haven’t figured it out,” Toph said. “Matori was one of the first Earth Kingdom colonies that the Fire Nation took when the war began, right?”

“Yes, because it was on the border and it already had a large Fire National population. What does that have to do with the Earth Queen?” Zuko asked.

“Really, Zuko?” Toph shook her head. “She wants it back. Duh.”

“The motivation makes sense, but it doesn’t line up with anything she’s actually _done,”_ Katara cut in. “If she wanted the land back, she’s got plenty of grounds to ask for it. If it was Earth Kingdom territory before the war, I would think that she’d have more luck trying to amend the peace treaty than she would with…sending bandits to raid Fire Nationals in the area after a drought, or starting another war, or whatever it is she’s trying to do.”

“Actually, there’s a problem with that,” Hina replied. “If you remember, the treaty allowed some of the more disputed border regions to self-determine. Some areas chose to be under Earth Kingdom jurisdiction, but Matori had so many Fire Nationals that they effectively out-voted the Earth National population, so…it’s technically still Fire Nation land.”

“So she can’t ask us to give it back because it wasn’t _us_ who kept it in the Fire Nation,” Zuko finished. “Right?”

“Well, that throws a wrench in things,” Toph commented. “So…if you can’t give it to her without the people’s permission and the people won’t give you that permission, she’s gotta invade if she wants it back.”

“And if she doesn’t want to be ousted for violating the right to self-determination or the treaty that her father signed into effect, she has to make it look like it was our fault,” Katara realized.

“And she saw an opportunity with that drought,” Zuko added. “It has to be that. The area was vulnerable, so she starts inflaming tensions against Earth National immigrants, trying to throw us off her scent, and then…”

“She kidnapped Ryu so we’d be distracted when she sent out her next round of ‘bandits,’” Katara thought aloud. “And by the time that was done, it was too late.”

“The bubble had already burst,” Hina said.

“So what are we going to do about it?” Zuko asked.

“Depends on what your goal is,” Hina told him. “Avoiding war? Securing the border? Helping the Earth National refugees? All of those things are going to look a little bit different.”

“Yeah, but they all start with killing the Earth Bi-“

“Toph,” Katara warned.

  
“ _Queen,”_ Toph huffed. “They all start with killing the Earth _Queen._ I swear, some things never change.”

“ _See?”_ Hina threw up her hands. “She gets it!”

“Hina, we’re not going to assassinate heads of state!”

“But she wants a war that you can’t stop until someone else is in power,” Hina argued. “Sure, you can take care of the refugees and try to secure your border with Lian still in power, but and she wants that land back, and she isn’t going to stop until she gets it. If the only way she can do that is by invasion, well, then…that’s what she’ll do, and you’ll be obligated to declare war on her to protect your people in the area.”

“And the best way to take her down is from within,” Toph reminded them.

“But what about the power vacuum?” Katara cut in. “There’s no one qualified to lead in her place and it’ll be complete and utter chaos until someone steps up, and who _knows_ who that might be? We could end up with a military dictatorship in place of a tyrannical monarchy, and that’s honestly not that much better!”

“I don’t think it’s possible for this to get worse,” Hina said gravely. “I say we go to her first.”

* * *

“Zhaoyin, I’ve realized something.”

“Your Majesty, please, it’s-“

“And I told you to call me Lian.”

Minister To looked like he might burst a blood vessel at the mere thought of addressing her so informally, but he complied. “Sorry. Lian. What have you realized?”

“You know what the single greatest threat to the success of our plan is?” Lian asked.

“I…do not.”

“That Spymistress,” Lian said, her voice laced with acrid suspicion. “She knows too much, she’s seen too much, and she’s far too good at her job for my liking. The Avatar, the Cabinet, the Fire Lord and Lady, I could dupe. But her…”

“You are indeed correct, Lian.” Minister To didn’t want to admit that he’d been wildly jealous of the Spymistress on several occasions – _she_ certainly always knew how to please her sovereign. She was his best friend, the talk went…

He shook his head. There was no time nor need for such thoughts now.

“I think we need her out of the way,” Lian decided.

“Should I send agents to the Fire Nation, then?” Minister To didn’t bat an eyelash at her request.

“Oh, no, this is one I have to handle myself.” Lian cracked her knuckles. “Send a hawk to the palace. Tell them we want to renegotiate the peace accords.”

“But we don’t, Lian.”

“No, but it’ll get us in the palace,” Lian told him. “And if we want this to work, that’s where we need to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you caught that Kuvira reference, ily :)


	23. Precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kya and Yangchen discuss the events of the previous chapters; Queen Lian and Minister To arrive; Sana and Gyatso visit a refugee camp outside the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots happening here. Buckle up, guys.

“I don’t like this, Zuko,” Katara whispered, even though the Earth Queen’s retinue wasn’t yet in earshot. “This…is _exactly_ what Hina was talking about.”

“It’s almost creepy how quickly after that talk she wrote to us, saying she wanted to negotiate,” Zuko agreed. “Not like her.”

“And we know we can’t trust her to keep her word, so…” Katara and Zuko exchanged a worried look. “There’s really no way this can end well.”

Zuko took Katara’s clammy hand in his feverishly-warm one. “Damage control, Katara,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. “And Toph’s here this time. She’ll know when Lian is lying.

“Damage control,” she repeated, and the Queen approached. “And that’s true, but won’t that be every other word?”

* * *

“We need to do something for these people, Izumi!”

“Sana, I can’t let you do that,” Izumi sighed, flopping wearily into an armchair. “I agree with you and everything, but…you’ll be completely exposed.”

“You really think that refugee families fleeing for their lives are going to try to hurt me?” Sana challenged. “You’ve worked with them. You know that isn’t true!”

“Of course not, Sana. But if you’re out of the palace without proper security – and at a haphazard refugee camp while the Earth Queen and all of her people are in the city, no less – you’re a sitting duck. When I went, I had a whole squadron of guards positioned around the camp. That’s not going to happen with the whole guard staff securing the palace for the negotiations,” Izumi explained as patiently as she could. “You need to stay here until we know it’s safe.”

“What right do I have to stay here where it’s safe if _they_ aren’t?”

It was in moments like this when Izumi sincerely regretted that her sister was so much like herself.

“Mom and Dad _specifically_ told me to keep everyone in the palace and accounted for, Sana. I’m not going to add to the stress they have to deal with right now.”

“But-“

“No ‘buts,’ Sana. You need to stay here.”

Sana shook her head and turned on her heel, stalking away.

* * *

“Queen Lian,” Zuko greeted the arriving queen, bowing formally.

“Fire Lord Zuko,” she replied flatly, bowing. “And Fire Lady Katara.”

“We understand that you want to renegotiate the terms of the Peace Accords?” Katara asked, schooling her features into the blankest slate possible.

“I do,” Lian confirmed. “I think it’s about time our people had back the land that’s rightfully theirs.”

“If the people choose it, so do we,” Katara agreed.

“Oh, they will.”

Zuko and Katara exchanged a glance – neither liked the glint in the Earth Queen’s eyes – and said nothing as the group started up the steps to the palace.

“There’s no rush to begin the negotiation process,” Queen Lian started up again. “Really, I’ve got all the time in the world.”

Katara gritted her teeth and then clenched her fist when she had to un-grit her teeth to speak. “Well, the Earth National population of the Matori Province doesn’t, so I’d like to suggest that we get started immediately.”

Lian said nothing.

* * *

“I don’t like this, Kya.” Yangchen shook her head. “I don’t like it one bit.”

“I don’t either,” Kya replied, her eyes darkening. “I’d kill her before I let her within twenty feet of Hyun again and I-“

“Someone’s going all mama-bear,” Yangchen teased.

Kya’s eyes flashed. “He’s my _husband,_ Yangchen. And please don’t joke about things you don’t understand.”

“Right.” Yangchen’s eyes dropped to her shoes. “Sorry.”

“Anyway. I’ve been trying to keep Hyun out of sight since she arrived, but it’s kind of hard when he can tell how upset I am, and…” Kya sighed. “I don’t really know how to describe it. I’ve just felt…off the past few days, and when the Earth Queen showed up, that got a thousand times worse.”

“Why, are you sick or something?” Yangchen asked. “Not sleeping well?”

“No, that’s the weird thing.” Kya shrugged, but her downcast eyes made it clear that there was something she was still trying to conceal. “There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with me. It’s just…this weird shift in my mood and…I don’t know, the way I feel?”

“Isn’t that the same as your mood?” Yangchen asked.

“No, like, physically,” Kya clarified. “I mean, it’s entirely possible that I’m just worried, but it’s still weird.”

“Huh. That does sound strange,” Yangchen agreed. “But I don’t blame you. The Earth Queen gives me the creeps.”

“She gives me more than the creeps,” Kya spat under her breath, drawing another curious glance from Yangchen that she brushed off.

“I’m really worried about my mom, especially,” Yangchen went on, knowing better than to ask. “You know how she’s been going on about the Earth Queen, and I’m just…I don’t know, scared that she’s going to say the wrong thing at the wrong time and make everything worse.”

“Your mom is the smartest person any of us have ever met, Chen. I think she knows better than to go off on the Earth Queen in the middle of peace negotiations.”

“No, but that’s the thing. She’s been doing all _kinds_ of things we all would’ve thought she’d know not to do lately,” Yangchen said. “She usually makes really practical decisions, you know that. But this...she’s not being practical. Not acting like herself. It’s almost…”

“Almost?”

“It’s almost like this is a personal vendetta,” Yangchen said, her voice dropping low. “Like she’s driven by…I don’t know, hatred or a desire for revenge more than she is by…pragmatism, or the good of the country, or even justice. She’s always so good at pushing aside personal motives, but now…”

“Well, this probably _is_ personal for her,” Kya pointed out. “I mean, she’s half-Earth National and half-Fire National, right? I know that if the chief of the Southern Water Tribe was trying to start a war-“

“The Chief of the Southern Water Tribe is your _uncle,_ Kya.”

“Okay, if the _hypothetical_ Chief who wasn’t my uncle was trying to start a war with the Fire Nation, _and_ was a terrible Chief and an even worse mother who, by all accounts, deserves a slow and painful death, I’d think it was pretty hard to be practical, too.”

“I don’t think-“

“She’s caught between two worlds, Chen. That much is obvious.” Kya shrugged. “Whatever her other reasons for wanting to take down Lian are – and there are _many_ perfectly valid ones – I think that one’s first. I mean, the queen of one of the nations her parents came from is attacking the citizens of the other one, and those citizens are attacking people exactly like her – immigrants, mostly, and a lot of them mixed like she is. Wouldn’t that make you want to kill the Queen in her sleep?”

“I mean, that makes sense,” Yangchen conceded. “But I’m still scared.”

“I get it, Chen.” Kya set her hand on Yangchen’s shoulder. “This has been…awful for all of us.”

  
“Yeah, but I can’t stop thinking about what would happen if she _did_ say something to offend Lian,” Yangchen replied, her voice small. “She’s crazy enough to send people after her, and…my family would fall apart if anything happened to Mom, and all I can do is wait here and-and-“

“Chen,” Kya said soothingly. “Come here.”

Yangchen complied, resting her head against Kya’s shoulder. Kya wrapped her arm around the younger girl’s waist, leaning her cheek against Yangchen’s hair.

“I just don’t know what we’d do if we lost Mom,” Yangchen said, her strong, clear voice weak and anemic. “She’s our rock, I guess. I mean, Yuna’s going to leave, Gyatso is barely an adult and doesn’t act like one at all, and Dad is always out on Avatar business, and…I don’t know. Without her we’d be…I don’t know, a collection of people who are related to each other, not a family.”

“I can’t tell you it’s going to be okay,” Kya admitted after a pause. She knew how Yangchen loved her mother, and how Hina loved Yangchen – she had privately always seen her as the Spymistress’ favorite of her children – and her next words, she knew, would be important. “But I’m here if it’s not. We all are, okay?”

“Thank you, Kya,” Yangchen murmured, her hands finding fistfuls of Kya’s robe and holding on tight. They sat in silence for a moment before Yangchen couldn’t take it anymore and she got up, gesturing for Kya to follow. Throwing nervous glances back at one another every once in a while, they continued down the hallway, slipping off their shoes so that their movements would be silent. Neither was in direct danger, but it felt right, anyhow, so they did, following the long corridors back to their rooms. Kya tried to ignore the faint lightheadedness that had come over her since she got up, but it grew progressively worse and she reached for Yangchen’s arm, blinking rapidly just to keep her vision clear.

“Kya?” Yangchen asked, narrowing her eyes. “Are you all right?”

“’m fine,” she muttered before her hand lost grip on Yangchen’s robes and she crumpled to the floor.

* * *

“Gyatso, I want you to sneak out with me.”

Gyatso, who’d been meditating on a tatami mat, looked up abruptly at Sana, who’d kneeled down in front of him. “I’m sorry, _what?”_

“You heard me,” she said boldly. “I want to go to the refugee camp, and I need you to help me sneak out.”

“I’m pretty sure one person has less of a chance of being caught than two people do, Sana,” Gyatso told her flatly, though he felt a twinge of guilt at the hurt that flashed across her face at his words.   
  
“Yeah, but I need someone to have my back,” Sana said, her cheeks red. “And Izumi said it wasn’t safe-“

“Oh. So your sister forbade you to go and you need me to help you break out?” Gyatso asked. “Don’t be a child, Sana.”

“Gyatso!” Sana flinched as if he’d raised his hand to hit her, her pretty, delicate features droopy with hurt.

_Oh. That was rude._ He shook himself. “Sorry. That came out really wrong.”

“I’ll say it did,” Sana snapped. “Fine, then. I should’ve known you’d take my sister’s side.”

“Yeah, because she’s _right!”_ Gyatso protested. “I mean…Sana, you _aren’t_ safe out of the palace right now. None of us would be.”   
  


“What right do we have to be safe when they aren’t?” Sana protested, pulling a line from her repertoire of Things To Say That Usually Work On People.

“Sana…”

“I really thought you’d learned,” Sana huffed, teary-eyed. She knew she was being childish, but she didn’t care – she was _seventeen,_ after all, and she figured that gave her as much of an excuse as any to be petty from time to time.

Besides, this hadn’t really been about the refugee camp in a long while.

“I really thought you got over my sister and matured and you’d understand why I need to do this, but you _didn’t._ I should’ve known.”

“Sana, I don’t understand what this has to do with Izumi,” Gyatso said, genuinely nonplussed.

“I thought you had my back, but _nooo._ You’ll always choose Izumi.” Sana stood up and brushed off her clothes, turning her face away from Gyatso so he wouldn’t see the tears pooling in her eyes. “I should have _known.”_

“Known what?”

“That I’ll never mean half as much to you as she does,” Sana said under her breath, and she fled before her tears could begin to fall.

Gyatso considered calling after her, but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say, so he sat on his meditation mat, bewildered. Sana was impulsive and temperamental, but rarely so outright immature, and he couldn’t quite grasp why.

For once, he was sure he’d done the right thing, and it hadn’t had anything to do with Izumi. So why would she assume it had? Why had everything she’d said revolved around some perceived conflict between herself and her sister when she’d been, apparently, talking about wanting to sneak out?

And why did that framing of the situation bother him so much?

_Wait._

When the realization came, it felt like a slap of cold water to the face.

_She’s jealous of Izumi,_ Gyatso realized. _And…I think I know why._

* * *

Kya buried her head in her knees, back pressed against the bathroom door. The air felt too heavy, her skin too tight for her body.

_Why now?_

* * *

“You know what to do, Zhaoyin,” Lian said. Dim candlelight lit her face as she spoke, casting shadows on the wall behind her.

“Of course, Lian.”

“Excellent. Assemble the Dai Li agents in the South Hall.”


	24. All Fall Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: graphic imagery.

Yangchen’s feet wouldn’t move through the deserted hallway, some unnamed dread rooting her to the place she stood.

She could feel eyes following her and hairpin-trigger reflexes, a Spymistress’ canny intuition passed down imperfectly to a daughter who’d taken it to heart, would not let her move. So Yangchen froze, alert and awake to the smallest of movements and sounds as her eyes flicked across every dimly-lit surface of the hallways.

She often did this, so it was not the novelty of passing through the halls under cover of darkness that bothered her. She’d relished it as a child, often sneaking off to the kitchens for the moon peach buns baked late at night for the next morning. She had always taken the rare chance to slip unnoticed down the halls, test her stealth and skill as she evaded guards and servants and other such well-meaning passersby, and she’d never lost her love of the midnight hours. But her treks had never been so eerily quiet, not once in fourteen years. It was strange, and Yangchen knew better than to disregard the hairs raising on the back of her neck, though nothing that she could see warranted her alarm.

She planted her foot as softly as she could manage and closed her eyes, and her seismic sense caught vibrations in an outlying hall.

Yangchen’s heart sped up on instinct alone, and she turned, ducking behind the nearest door. The office was deserted, papers strewn about in the dusty dimness, and its door creaked on rusty hinges as she pulled it shut behind her. She cringed, but the footsteps had been far in the distance and she hoped that no one had heard. 

But when she planted a foot after a tense moment, the vibrations had stopped, and the telltale footsteps had stopped in the hall she’d stood in only months ago. _Assassins,_ she realized, and with a terrible jolt of fear and not a great deal of thought given to tactics or even good sense, she threw open the heavy, rusty door and burst into the hallway, hands at the ready.

With nothing but the barest look at her solitary assailant, Yangchen cracked the polished wood of the floors beneath them, stone pushing up through the floorboards and pushing him off his feet. She bent stone around his hands, but he bent through it and, though still winded, the man recovered and shot back, trying to pin her in place as she had him. Finally, as she dodged and countered, Yangchen got a good look at the man’s face, and her heart plummeted.

He wore the unmistakable green of the Dai Li, and that had to mean there were others.

She had to get this man out of the way before his comrades ambushed her, and without thinking of much but the people sleeping peacefully behind the same doors that had failed to hide her, she pinned his feet and forced the stone on which he stood towards the wall. Before he could bend himself free, shocked as he was at the sudden motion and dazed as he was after being slammed against the wall, she unsheathed the dagger at her side – her mother’s, and her grandfather’s before, hilted with mother-of-pearl and all that remained of her lost grandparents – and let it fly true.

And the Dai Li streamed into the hallway like actors hearing their cue just a second too late.

Yangchen wanted to panic, wanted to flee back behind the doors and bend an unbreakable barrier of metal and stone in front of her. She knew she could hold them off, fighting from a defensible position; few Earthbenders were more skilled than she, even those in the Earth Queen’s employ. But here, cornered and surrounded and beginning to realize that she’d need backup or a miracle if she wanted to keep these snakes they’d allowed into palace from accomplishing their goals, she wasn’t so sure.

Everything Yangchen felt told her to run, but everything she knew to be true demanded that she stay.

So she raged against earth and fear alike and she called the stone beneath her feet to arms alongside her, her every movement a step in a frantic dance for survival. She blocked and dodged and countered, met each assailing chunk of earth with one of her own, each blow she landed in the scuffle an advance. She wrested her dagger from the chest of the Dai Li agent, still helplessly pinned to the wall, and it whipped through the air almost unnoticed in the chaos until it found its mark. She began to tire but still, she strained against every attack, unstoppable in her resolve and unbreakable in her resilience.

  
Nine men to one should have overcome her resistance in moments and she knew, from the invariable horror on the faces of her opponents, that the Queen’s agents knew that. But they had not known, when they’d slipped through the halls as stealthily as snakes through dense, concealing foliage, that they would face opposition. They were unprepared, though they’d come ready to fight.

They hadn’t prepared to face Yangchen Oyama.

They certainly hadn’t prepared to _lose._

A moment of stillness proved all too tempting for Yangchen, though, and for a moment she and the four men who’d lasted this long stared at each other – her in front, human shield of a unknown victim, and they facing her, lined up like prisoners awaiting their sentences. Panting, she pushed her short, unbound hair from her eyes, faintly aware of a few rips in the thin, spring-green cotton of her pajamas. But she didn’t let that thought linger, because, even if for a second, her adversaries had let their guard down, and that moment was all she needed.

In one fluid motion, she raised an avalanche from the palace’s foundations, and the men, thrown to the wall, were encased in stone.

Yangchen didn’t have the presence of mind to feel horror at what she’d done, nor relief that it had succeeded. All she could do was run, making a frantic dash for her mother’s office and hoping against hope that she’d still be there at this hour to warn. Her feet found their path without hesitation, but she had not yet arrived when she collided with something in her path.

“Spymistress,” it hissed, and when she looked up she met the shifty, cataracted eyes of the Earth Queen’s Foreign Minister.

“Oh, no, there has to be a mistake,” she said, suddenly panicked at the realization that he was, more likely than not, involved in the attack. “I’m not the Spymistress. I’m just going-“

“To the Spymistress’ office, at this obscene hour. Really, Hina, I thought you were smarter than that,” Minister To said, looking down through near-sightless eyes in the dark. “You look like her, you sound like her, you’re going to her office…and you expect me to believe that you are anyone else?”

“Hina isn’t this tall!” Yangchen protested, grasping at straws. “And…and…she can’t Earthbend. I was just Earthbending! If you need proof, check the next hall over!”

“Right.” Minister To crossed his arms. “A likely claim.”

“I’m telling the truth, Minister, I _swear_ I am,” Yangchen pleaded, bile rising in her throat. _They want my mother,_ she realized, and she briefly wondered if she should impersonate her, try to convince the Minister that she _was_ Hina, let the fate meant for her mother befall her. But she did not, she realized, have it in herself to say it.

  
But, though she had not the courage to do the heroic thing - the thing her father or her sister would’ve done - she could do the _practical_ thing.

And that was to run, and warn her family before anything could befall them.

Without another word, she fled, her feet pounding the hardwood floors as she fled towards her mother’s office, but again she was stopped, and she thought her heart and legs might give out beneath her in some unholy marriage of panic and complete, bone-deep exhaustion.

“You’re supposed to be so much more clever than this, Spymistress.” The unmistakable contralto of the Earth Queen sent a slow, forceful shudder up Yangchen’s spine. “Really, I’m quite disappointed.”

“Queen Lian,” Yangchen spat.

“Spymistress Oyama,” Queen Lian replied, her tone as infuriatingly light as it always was when a situation truly held weight.

“I am not the Spymistress, but _you_ ,” she hissed, because she could think of nothing else to do now that exhaustion and surroundings made escape impossible, “are the scum of the earth.”

“You only say that because I’ve bested you, Hina.”

“I’m _not_ Hina!”

“You can keep up that façade all you want, but it won’t get any more convincing.”

“And you didn’t best me!” Yangchen cried, realizing with a furtive flutter of hope that maybe she _did_ have a chance. If she made enough noise, _someone_ might come running; she raised her voice as high as it would reach and shouted to the rafters, “who do you think took out those ten Dai Li agents you sent after my mother singlehandedly?”

Cold, hard, unadulterated _fear_ overtook Queen Lian’s face, and Yangchen thought she could die content if she knew that _that_ was the reaction her final stand had provoked from the Earth Queen.

“With my _Earthbending,”_ Yangchen said pointedly. “Which _Spymistress Oyama doesn’t have.”_

“Do you really expect me to believe that?”

Yangchen readied her stance, preparing to hurl the Queen into the nearest wall with the last of her strength. “No, but I expect you to believe-“

Her words died on her lips, and nothing but a strangled cry could come from her mouth at an unmistakable pressure in her shoulder, and Yangchen realized what she’d done, then, when pressure turned to a searing pain so unbearable it brought her to her knees.

She’d left her back unguarded.

“Minister To,” she gasped, short of breath, as her knees buckled beneath her.

“No one thwarts the aims of the Earth Queen, _Spymistress,_ ” Minister To spat. “I look forward to seeing this palace ripped apart when your husband finds you here.”

“Y-you will n-never win,” Yangchen stammered, and she let her head drop.

She fought to keep her mind sharp and her eyes open as their footsteps moved away, thinking her dead. _This wound shouldn’t be fatal. I just have to wait, and get myself to someone who can help me,_ she told herself, drawing ever-more-shallow breaths. _Wait it out, wait it out, wait it out…_

It was two unbearable minutes before she knew they were gone and she barely had the strength to stand, almost slipping on a floor slick with blood. But she willed herself onwards though with every halting step, her resolve weakened.

_Just five more yards,_ she reasoned with herself, and though it took every ounce of her fast-failing strength to throw the door open, she dragged herself through the doorway.

Hina Oyama, sleeping at her desk, awoke at a heavy thud as Yangchen’s legs gave out beneath her.

* * *

“Mom?”

Hina, jolted from fitful sleep, blinked to clear her vision, flicking her eyes around the room to see where the voice had come from, until her eyes fell on a figure crumpled on the carpet, barely visible in the dimness. Confused but too tired to be frantic, she took a match and struck the stub of a candle she’d burned all night to life again, raising it so its watery light would illuminate the figure.

She raised her eyes and Hina’s heart felt like it had fallen from its place in her chest.

“Mom,” Yangchen rasped, clawing for purchase against the carpet in an attempt to stand. “Someone w-wants to…s-someone wants to k-kill you.”

Hina did not hear her words. She wouldn’t have cared if she did.

Her daughter’s face was wan and rapidly paling, and her green nightclothes were thick and stiff with blood, some dried, some fresh, and a dagger protruded from her shoulder.

“ _Guards!”_ she called with every ounce of force she could muster, and when no one came running, her face turned stony.

She wasn’t going to let her daughter bleed out. She dropped to the floor beside her, hands shaking as she took Yangchen into her arms, carefully avoiding the knife.

“Oh, Agni, _Yangchen…”_

“’m gonna be okay, Mom.” Yangchen tried to manage a smile and she reached up to stroke Hina’s cheek, her strong, calloused Earthbender’s hands weak and almost limp. “I just gotta get K’tara, and then it’s gonna be fine-“

“Save your strength, baby,” she murmured, brushing Yangchen’s matted hair from her face as she cradled her. “We’ll get you help right away-“

“They were here for you,” Yangchen repeated. “I got attacked…Dai Li, killed them all, but then th’ Earth Queen and M’ster To…they-“

“Where were the guards?” Hina’s eyes flashed and she wasn’t sure whether she was enraged or terrified or both. 

“Gone,” Yangchen said. “They…they must’ve…”

“I’m going to kill Lian,” Hina spat under her breath.

“They thought I was you,” Yangchen rasped, her breathing growing laborious. “I had’t play dead to get away from them.”

“That’s my girl,” Hina whispered, tears springing to her eyes unbidden.

“Can we go get K’tara?” Yangchen asked weakly, her eyes listlessly settling on nothing at all. “Need to stop the bleeding-“

“It isn’t safe, Chennie,” Hina murmured, stroking her daughter’s hair. “I can’t move you.”

“Mom, please,” Yangchen begged, the quiver in her already-shaky voice growing more pronounced. “We hafta-“

“Chennie…”

“I don’t want to die,” Yangchen whispered, tears welling in her eyes. “I survived all of that ‘nd I’m not just…just…”

“Don’t talk,” Hina told her, cradling her head when she no longer had the strength to hold it. She knew her daughter’s blood was staining the carpet, her uniform – but she couldn’t find it within herself to care, and in a moment she made up her mind. “You know what? We have to try.”

“We have to try,” Yangchen repeated, and Hina shakily stood, still cradling Yangchen in her arms. Her head came to rest against her shoulder as she walked, her steps halting and totally incognizant of the danger, down the hallway towards the Fire Lady’s study, where Hina knew she’d still be awake.

It was probably a terrible idea, exposing themselves, moving someone with such a grievous wound. But Yangchen would die if she did not _try,_ and a fool’s hope was better than no hope at all. So she walked on, nearly buckling under her daughter’s weight but forcing herself to stay upright.

Later, she’d have time to worry about the danger, but now, watching the life she’d nurtured for twenty-one years slipping away with every second, all she could think about was the past.

_“I want you to run,” her mother had said. “If anything happens to us, I want you to run.”_

_“But Mama-“_

_“Hina, I don’t care what else is happening, you need to run if we’re in danger,” she repeated, pressing a lacquered box into her hands. “Take these and get to your grandparents’ house outside of the city, okay?”_

_She’d nodded, opening the box after her mother had gone to find a pair of golden fans and a dagger with an iridescent mother-of-pearl hilt. Weapons, one from each parent, the inheritance of a girl who would know only struggle._

_Hina was nine when the verdict was read. She ran, and she tried not to look back._

“Hang in there, Chennie,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to her daughter’s hair as her limp head lolled against her shoulder.

“’m trying,” she croaked.

_“Jiro!” she’d screamed, struggling desperately in her colleagues’ restraining arms as the munitions factory burst at its seams, engulfed in fire. “JIRO!”_

_She went limp, then, and later they told her that he’d done what he had to do for the good of the Cause._

_They didn’t get it. Her best friend was dead. Right now, she couldn’t have cared less about the Cause._

“Almost there,” Hina said softly, shifting Yangchen in her arms so that she wouldn’t drop her. “You’re going to be alright, Chennie.”

“Okay,” Yangchen said, her response childlike in its simplicity.

Hina couldn’t stop to notice the bloodstains trailing them through the halls. She couldn’t care _less_ about inconspicuousness, normally so paramount in her mind.

Later, she’d worry about bloodstains on the floor and on clothes and on her own hands, for she’d been the cause of all of this, but now all that she could afford to think of was getting Yangchen to safety.

_“Katara said this one would be an Earthbender,” Hina remarked, her hand drifting to the curve of her stomach. A tiny fist connected with her open palm at the contact. “Another girl.”_

_Aang said nothing, settling in behind her and resting his chin atop her head as his hands joined hers._

_“I always thought you’d have been an Earthbender if you could bend,” he said after a moment. “It’s fitting.”_

_She smiled, setting his hands flat against her stomach. “I think so, too.”_

“We’re here, Yangchen,” Hina murmured as she stopped in front of the door to Katara’s office. She began to knock frantically, unable to open the door with her daughter in her arms, and her shoulders sagged with relief when it opened.

_Hina had never been so exhausted nor so terrified, nor in so much pain, but she wasn’t convinced that the feeling would last._

_“Yangchen,” she murmured weakly when Katara set her baby in her arms, muttering something about blood loss that she didn’t hear as she laid eyes on her second daughter for the first time. “I’m calling her Yangchen.”_

_She was barely half-alive but she’d never felt so inexplicably convinced that all would be well._

_“She’s a fighter,” Katara remarked later, after the danger had passed. “Like her mother.”_

_It was an astute observation. Yangchen Oyama, a girl the size of a rice sack, had nearly brought down the unstoppable Spymistress of the Fire Nation, and Hina was inclined to agree._

“You have to help her,” Hina pants as soon as Katara opens the door.

“Yangchen?” Katara’s eyes widened in horror. “Oh, Spirits, what happened?”

“She was attacked,” Hina replied, stumbling into the office and setting Yangchen down on Katara’s settee. “Something about the Dai Li.”

Hina paused, waiting for Yangchen to cut in and correct her, but she didn’t respond. Hina knelt beside the settee, gently lifting her daughter’s face. “Yangchen?” she asked. “Is that right?”

She said nothing, unresponsive to her mother’s touch.

Recognition dawned on Katara’s face and she bowed her head at the feeling of tears pricking the back of her eyes. “Oh, Spirits,” she murmured again, kneeling beside the two. She uncapped her waterskin and pressed water across Yangchen’s wound, then her chest, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “Hina, I’m…she’s…”

Hina’s heart caught in her throat.

“Tell me you don’t mean that.”

“Hina, she’s…there’s nothing I can do.”

“But a minute ago, she was-“

“Hina, it’s too late.”

“No…”

“I’m so, so sorry,” Katara murmured through tears.

“I promised her she would be fine!” Hina’s breath sped up and she let her head sink to the settee, resting against Yangchen’s chest. “She can’t…Chennie, you can’t… _I can’t…”_

“Hina…”

“ _No!”_ Hina slammed her fist against the settee, suddenly the nine-year-old girl who’d curled up and cried hot, angry tears in the cargo hold of a steamer again. “They _can’t_ take her from me!”

Katara said nothing, though she tried to embrace her friend. Hina would have none of it, thrashing out of her grip and throwing herself against her daughter’s still body. She pressed her ear to her chest once again, willing Yangchen to breathe, move, do _something_ to let her know that she’d fight this wound the way she’d fought her entire life.

But she felt no heartbeat.

  
“Chennie,” she murmured, heart swelling painfully with something entirely unfamiliar. “Yangchen, baby, you need to…you need to wake up, open your eyes. Chennie, _please.”_

She heard nothing, of course, and a broken sob wracked her shoulders as her tears moistened the dried bloodstains on Yangchen’s tunic.

“Not you!” she cried into the fabric of Yangchen’s shirt. “Why did it have to be _you?”_ She dissolved into frantic sobs, her body all but convulsing, and she clung to Yangchen’s clothes like a lifeline as she cried.

But after the longest moment of her life, when Hina Oyama raised her eyes, they held no grief.

Instead, they flashed with rage, and when she stood, she took the dagger from the sheath by Yangchen’s hip.


	25. Retribution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hina sets out to right a wrong; Kya and Hyun can no longer hide from reality; the family reacts to earth-shattering news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: graphic imagery, again. The first scene is pretty disturbing, and if you want to skip it, please scan past the italics and read the clean, condensed summary in the endnotes. 
> 
> IMPORTANT NARRATIVE NOTE: the scene between Kya and Hyun takes place BEFORE they get the news about Yangchen's death. That is VERY important - they're not having this conversation knowing that she has died. 
> 
> ALSO: this has a severe case of tonal whiplash. It goes from an extremely disturbing scene to a sweet one to a devastatingly sad moment with NO transition save changes in tense and typeface that are supposed to indicate shifts, and I'm sorry if that's jarring.

**_TWO_ **

_She moves through the still, heavy cloak of night on silent feet, dagger at her side and rage enough for thousands hidden in her heart – a weapon exposed, and one concealed. She is one with the task at hand; though her devotion to her work rarely wavers, she has never felt such intensity of purpose before. She is the sole arbiter of the fate of one so overwhelmingly undeserving of mercy that she cannot even quantify the color of the stain on her conscience. She is power and grace and carnage and poetry in motion._

_She is not Spymistress, nor advisor, nor friend, nor wife, nor pragmatist tonight._

_She is a mother stricken, and she is an avenging angel._

_She does not know where to find the Earth Queen, but somehow, she feels as if the burning rage crowding out the grief that threatens to overtake her will light the way. If it is fire, surely it will give her light enough to see by; surely she will find the woman she seeks. So she slinks through darkness, clothed in the stiff black cotton uniform of mourning and stealth alike, senses and dagger at the ready. She enters room after room without a sound; she scours the halls, traipses into every spare corner with single-minded focus. The Earth Queen, though, is nowhere to be found._

_The Earth Queen has probably, like the coward she is, retreated to her room to wash her daughter’s blood off of her hands, to hide behind a wall of Dai Li agents and deny everything of which Yangchen had used her dying breaths to warn her mother. She’s probably doing that just now, sleeping peacefully as if she’s anything but the despicable recreant and miscreant and insult to all that is decent that she is._

_No matter. She will let the Earth Queen’s blood against pristine white sheets if that is what it takes._

_Clearness of mind is key, but she cannot help but think. She wonders how she’ll end the Queen: if she’ll surprise her, sneak up behind her like she and her lapdog of a Foreign Minister had her daughter, or if she will make it hurt: if she’ll twist the knife inch by inch until it pierces her heart, if she’ll read from the list in her mind every grievance, every reason that Lian of Ba Sing Se deserves nothing but death. She wonders what she will do, in the moment when her eyes meet those of her target. She wonders if her gumption will waver; it rarely does, but she has never faced an adversary against whom her grudge is so acutely, gapingly personal._

_But she never wonders if she is doing what she should be. She does not hear her husband’s voice in her head begging her to spare an undeserving victim. She does not hear her employers’ implorations to think things through, to stop before she makes things worse. She does not hear her two remaining children’s gasps of horror when they realize what their mother has done._

_She hears only Yangchen’s labored breaths and the sound of her choked sob as she cried, helpless to resist, that she did not want to die. And it is enough to drive her onwards._

_In her last moments, Yangchen Oyama was nothing more than a child who needed her mother, and her mother failed her. In the moments that follow, her mother swears upon everything she has ever been or will ever be that she will not fail the daughter who needs her._

_The Earth Queen is not in her chambers, in the end, for she’d not known that she chose the wrong target, unaware that the woman whose life she’d sought to snuff out – and oh, how Hina wishes that she had – still walked free, dagger in hand. She is moving silently through the hallways beside her Minister as if nothing at all is wrong, and it is an opportunity that may not come again._

_She rushes on near-silent feet to the unguarded back of the Foreign Minister and shoves her dagger into his sinewy flesh with every ounce of force her small body contains._

_She knows from a lifetime of fighting for her life that the shoulder is a deadly place to strike; it takes little time for the victim of such a wound to bleed to death, and there will be no help for To Zhaoyin. He gasps and staggers forwards, falling into his Queen – his mistress, she’s long suspected – and cursing and flailing and fighting the encroaching night without hope of success, and something within her twinges, unsure whether she is satisfied or horrified._

_Queen Lian looks up with abject horror._

_“You,” she spits._

_“You killed my daughter,” Hina seethes, and fear strikes her face anew._

_“It was you I meant to kill, but I’m sure you know that,” Lian spits, her lip curling into a sneer as if she hadn’t been the one to insist she had the right woman when she had not._

_“You’re going to die wishing you had.”_

_Hina stares down her opponent and she wishes her rage were tangible, a physical entity she could harness and shape and throw out to strangle the Queen where she stands. But it is not, and she realizes that this is the moment she has waited for. The Queen’s retinue is dead, strewn lifelessly about a hall in Yangchen’s last stand; her minister gasps for life on the floor. She is unguarded; her soft underbelly is completely exposed._

_Exactly as Hina had hoped._

_She rips the dagger from Minister To’s shoulder, too focused to note with satisfaction the pained groan he lets out before his body goes limp and Queen Lian howls his name. She is distracted; Hina pulls her into a headlock and presses her dagger to the Queen’s throat._

_She thinks her father would have been proud of its being used this way._

_“You took my Yangchen from me,” she accuses, trying to keep her hands steady so that she will not dig the blade into her throat too soon. “She was barely more than a child, and you made sure she would never get a chance to grow up, and you are going to pay for that with your life.”_

_Hina’s shocked at the calm, even timbre of her voice. Maybe it’s the seething sense of righteousness coursing through her veins._

_“It was Zhaoyin who killed her, not me.”_

_“Do I look like I care?”_

_Hina runs the knife’s edge across her throat in one smooth motion and lets go just to watch the Queen fall. She stands over her prone body, and she feels empty, and hollow, and the ache in her gut is no less painful than it was the moment her Yangchen stopped breathing, but justice has been served._

_“Consider your debt repaid,” she spits, and she turns her back._

* * *

**_FOUR_ **

Something was wrong. Something was bad. Something was terribly amiss and Hyun was very, very worried, for Kya _never_ woke up early. She was a late sleeper and a late riser and she’d growl like his great-uncle Kuei’s pet bear when she was roused earlier than she’d have liked, and now it was four in the morning and when he blinked his eyes open she was gone. She’d left no trace but an indentation in the bed, still warm, and in an instant Hyun was out of bed, frantically fumbling for the matches he kept in his nightstand to relight a candle that had gone out in the night to look for her.

“Kya?” he whispered, hoping she could hear him in the dark. “Where’d you go? Are you okay?”

Silence. He began to walk the perimeter of their bedroom, finally stopping when he saw a faint glow around the edges of the door to the washroom. _Thank the spirits,_ he thought. “Kya?” he asked, just to be certain nothing was wrong.

Her heard no reply at first but the sound of retching quickly followed his words, and his eyes blew wide. “Kya,” he murmured into the silent dark, half-panicked. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“I’m fine,” she called weakly from behind the door. “Go back to bed, Hyun.”

“You’re obviously not fine! Let me-“

Kya threw the door open before he could say another word, her expression pinched, pained, terrified, and annoyed all at once. “Hyun.” She reached out to brush his forearm reassuringly. “I’m okay, I promise.”

“What happened? Are you getting sick?” Hyun asked, placing his hand at the small of his wife’s back so as to support her if she collapsed. “First you faint, now you’re throwing up…”

“This is all totally normal,” she told him, casting her eyes down. “Nothing to worry about.”

She looked as if she had a great deal to worry about.

“But Kya, it _isn’t_ normal to-“

“Hyun, baby, I _swear_ I’m fine and this is _not_ helping.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, though he had no intention of stopping as he helped her into bed – Kya glared at him but didn’t bat his hands away – and slid into the sheets beside her. “I just want to know if there’s something wrong.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said flatly.

“That doesn’t mean there’s nothing wrong, though,” Hyun pointed out.

“Fine, Hyun. _Fine.”_ Kya sat up, crossing her arms protectively over her middle. “You want to know what’s wrong? We’ve never so much as _talked_ about having children and now we are!”

“ _Huh?”_

“Ugh, you are _so impossible!”_ Kya uncrossed her arms to gesture at him in a manner that couldn’t possibly have been flattering. “Put two and two together, I _beg_ of you!”

“I’m sorry, Ky, I’m just…not following.”

“Hyun, that thing I just had?” she took a deep breath to steady herself. “It’s called morning sickness. Ever heard of it?”

“Uh…no,” Hyun said, scratching at the back of his neck. “Is it…is it bad?”

  
“It means I’m _pregnant,_ Hyun.”

Hyun had to take a minute to let her words sink in, but when they did, they did not sink so much as they exploded like fireworks in every inch of his body. He reached for Kya of pure instinct and she grasped his wrists when he cupped her cheeks, her downcast eyes filling with tears.

“I’m so sorry, Hyun,” she said, her voice breathy and shaking with nerves. “I know we didn’t plan this, or _want_ it, and I should’ve been more careful, and I’m _sorry,_ and-“

“You…you think I’m upset about this?” Hyun asked in disbelief. “Kya, I’m…I…I know we never talked about it and I’m sorry it happened before that but do you have _any_ idea how badly I want this?”

Kya finally looked up at him, chin trembling. “You do?”

“Spirits, Kya, _yes,”_ he murmured, and he leaned in to kiss her before she could formulate a counterargument. “I…we’re having a _baby?”_

“That is the idea, yes,” Kya laughed through her tears.

“ _We…_ are having a _baby,”_ Hyun repeated, wondering if it were possible to die of happiness and figuring it was not – he’d be dead by now, he knew, if it were. “You and me…we made a _baby!”_

“Yes, Hyun, we did.” Kya’s face was still tear-stained, but she was laughing now, leaning her forehead against hers. “It’s awful timing and we’ve only really been together for, what, six weeks? But...if you’re happy…”

He kissed her again, because he knew he had no words for the joy threatening to burst from his chest and paint every surface of their bedroom in screaming color.

“Are _you_ happy?” he asked when he finally pulled away.

“I’m scared,” she admitted. “I’m _terrified._ I’m not ready to be a mother and-“

“You’re going to do so good, Kya,” he said, squeezing her hands fervently. “Baby, believe me. I know what a bad mom looks like and you’re going to be _such_ a good one and I…” he trailed off, overwhelmed, and pulled him into his arms once more.

“You didn’t let me finish,” she said, pressing her palms into his shoulders and her cheek to his neck.

“Sorry. Go on.”

“I’m not…I’m not happy that it happened like it did,” she said shakily. “But…I think I might be happy that it happened in the end.”

Hyun could not think of a single word to say, and so he embraced her, his arms bracketing her shoulders, pressing her tight against his chest. She melted into his embrace, her back shuddering with heavy sobs, and he kissed her head, supporting her where she could not.

And after a moment, when the sobs had subsided and she had pulled away, Kya smiled, and she pressed Hyun’s palm against the barely-there curve of her stomach.

“That’s _ours,_ ” she said, perhaps encouraged by his own excitement or perhaps simply caught up in the moment. Either way, Hyun didn’t care, not when time had stopped and he felt as if he held the world in his palm.

“It is,” he said, stroking her stomach. “Kya…”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“I’ve…I’ve always wanted kids,” he admitted, his face flushing. “And I didn’t think I would ever get to have them but-“

Kya’s lips crashed into his before he could finish his sentence.

“This is crazy,” she murmured when she pulled away. “But maybe…maybe we can make this work.”

“I know we can.”

And Hyun meant it.

After all, he had never believed any words or loved anyone so much in his life.

* * *

**_DAWN_ **

_They gather an hour after dawn, the nine of them lined up in front of the grave-faced Fire Lady. She fights back tears, visibly, as they wait for her to speak; Zuko takes her hand but he, too, is ashen, and their children, biological and honorary alike, share worried glances._

_  
Izumi stares at her parents as if, in doing so, she might crack a code, puzzle out the reason for their strange behavior. She and Hideo rest their hands against each other’s backs, discreetly, and they try to uncover whatever it is that they are not being told._

_Kya glances around the room and Hyun stares at her more intently with every anxious dart of her eyes. One of her hands rests protectively against her stomach and the other holds Hyun’s, and the expression on her face cannot be mistaken for anything but dread._

_Worry is etched in every line of Yuna and Ryuji’s faces. Yuna absentmindedly rocks Sora in her arms, but she does not look at him; that is an honor reserved for Katara, whose mournful expression she notes with gnawing, growing worry._

_  
She wonders where her parents are, if it’s this important. She wonders where_ Yangchen _is, for that matter._

_Standing beside her sister, Sakari looks to Sana for an answering look, but she gets none, for Sana is entirely preoccupied in calming a frantic Gyatso with only her eyes. He has always had a sixth sense of sorts in moments like this; he always seems to know when bad news must be delivered. Sana knows this, and she eyes him worriedly, her small, gentle hands flitting about as she tries to do what she can to soothe him without effect._

_When they have all stood in silence for an unbearable moment, Katara speaks, and she sounds as if she must drag her feet through molasses to get each successive word of her speech out._

_“I have terrible news,” she begins, and every face in the room plummets._

_Zuko steps in when he sees the way his wife’s face crumples. “As you’re all aware, the Earth Queen’s delegation is visiting,” he says. He’s using his Fire Lord Voice – the stern one he uses to make speeches, never with his children – and they know the moment they hear it what that means. “Late last night, they…attacked.”_

_A cacophony of voices rings out, echoing off the stone walls – “attacked who?!?” and “will they again?” and “what happened?” – in a flurry of panicked words. Katara presses her palm to her forehead for a moment before she raises her teary eyes again and continues._

_“They were targeting Hina,” she says with a broken sob, turning and burying her face in her husband’s shoulder._

_Hyun looks like he wishes it were he whom his mother had wanted to eliminate._

_Gyatso’s face is sheet-white._

_Yuna all but screams._

_“But they didn’t succeed.” Zuko can’t meet anyone’s eyes as he continues. “It seems like the attack was meant for her, but they got the wrong person.”_

_The room lets out a collective sigh of relief._

_“They…they mistook…oh, Spirits, I can’t,” Katara sobs, collapsing into an armchair and burying her face in her hands. “Yuna, Gy, I’m so sorry...I’m so, so sorry-“_

_“What happened?” Gyatso balls his fists, every muscle in his body on edge. “Did something-“_

_“They thought Yangchen was your mother,” Zuko finally gets out._

_“Where is she?” Yuna asks, her voice tremulous and her eyes wide. “Where’s Chennie? Where are my parents?”_

_Katara gets up, finally, and walks over to take her daughter-in-law’s trembling hands. “Yuna, I’m so sorry,” she says. “But…she’s not coming back.”_

_The shriek that Yuna lets out as she sinks to her knees is something less than human, and her brother, though he does not make a sound, is as horrified. She screams, howls, rages against the world; her brother blusters, loudly demanding proof, insisting that he be allowed to speak to his parents, protesting that it cannot be true. Hyun sinks to his knees beside the woman whose family his own has taken from her, and Kya follows suit, but she pushes them away and no one, not even Ryuji, can risk approaching her. Izumi fires off a round of questions, demanding to know what, exactly, happened, and Sana holds Gyatso’s arm for dear life, and Sakari looks as if it was she who was stabbed._

_There is no silence for a long interval after the blade falls, but when there is, Gyatso breaks it._

_“Who’s going to tell Dad?”_

_He pauses when no one says anything._

_“And where’s Mom?”_

_Neither has the heart to tell Gyatso that his mother was last seen kneeling on the floor in a hallway just yards beyond the one where the bodies of the Earth Queen and her Foreign Minister were found just before dawn, her shoulders heaving with frantic tears as she clutched a bloodstained dagger._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SUMMARY OF THE FIRST SECTION: enraged at the death of her daughter, Hina sets out to avenge Yangchen by killing the Earth Queen and Minister To. She does so. That's...basically it. 
> 
> Does this need the Graphic Violence warning or an M rating, at this point? This is the last of the violent/disturbing chapters, but I'm worried that the disturbing factor of chapters 24 and 25 is enough to warrant a rating change, coupled with the fact that this has quite a bit of sexual content (another question: is the sexy stuff bad enough that I'd need to up the rating? I tried very hard to keep it tasteful but...I also didn't hide the fact that Kya and Hyun have been, to paraphrase a commenter, "getting it on." That isn't smut, is it...? Do I need a rating change?). Would love to hear your thoughts on this. 
> 
> NEXT: Aang reacts to Hina's decision. The family tries to process Yangchen's death while Katara and Zuko rush to keep the Earth Kingdom under control now that its ruler is dead.


	26. Sing No Requiem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone faces the fallout, both personal and political, of recent events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this will get better, and it does here, at least politically. But it's got to get worse first and I'm so, so sorry.

It had been Katara who’d been tasked with the unenviable task of breaking the news to Aang. When she’d arrived, though, she’d quickly found that she hadn’t needed to.

Initially she’d thought it needed to be her so that, were he to enter the Avatar State, she could calm him. Now she saw that there had been no such need, for when she cracked open the door to his room to find him standing across from Hina in a state of such shock that he could not even speak, she knew he already knew.

They stood a room-width apart, meeting each other’s eyes. Hina still wore her bloodstained uniform and her topknot was all but undone; Aang had all the frantic exhaustion in his eyes of someone who had been roused from sleep without time to wake before his world shattered. They didn’t speak. Their children had been loud in their grief, but they were silent, tears tracking down both their faces without a sound. Something, be it shock or sorrow, froze them to the spots where they stood, staring wild-eyed at each other.

Katara swung the door shut but pressed her back to the cool, relief-carved mahogany as a lump caught in her throat. She had not, in the hours since Yangchen’s death, had a spare moment to think about what had happened, and that was how she had planned it; she’d barely been able to break the news to her children even without the memories clouding her mind. But now, faced with the great, yawning _nothingness_ of what she’d have to spend the next several grim hours doing, she could not stop herself from mourning.

Katara had not been Yangchen’s mother, but she had still lost a child.

“I’m sorry,” she heard Hina say when they broke their silence, over and over, more broken with each repetition. “I…I _had_ to.”

Aang said nothing. No moral compunctions could stir him to outrage at his wife’s actions now, not when the reason for them had been so clear. Shock, it seemed, was all he could bring himself to feel at the news, at the greatest perversion of _supposed-to-be_ that he had ever encountered.

Perhaps later he would disapprove of what she had done, or perhaps he would not; but for now, the last thing Katara heard before she fled, trying and failing to contain her heartache behind a carefully-placed hand, was the sound of his broken sobs, and she knew that his grief was for his daughter and his daughter alone.

* * *

“What do you _mean_ she’s dead?” Toph clutched the countertop so tightly that her knuckles went white. “That’s impossible! Why couldn’t she-“

“She was ambushed, Toph.” Zuko tried to keep his voice even but it wobbled anyway.

“But she should’ve been able to defend herself,” Toph protested, her whole face as sheet-white as her knuckles now. “ _I_ trained her! The Yangchen I know wouldn’t _ever_ get herself killed like that!”

“Toph, I’m sorry, but…she couldn’t do anything to stop them.”

“Tell me you’re lying.”

  
Zuko couldn’t meet his friend’s eyes. “You know I’m not.”

* * *

“My own _family…”_ Hyun drew a ragged breath, ineffectually rubbing at his face in a vain effort to wipe his tears away. Through her own tears, Kya reached out and drew his hands away from his face, setting them in her lap. Her chin trembled and her whole body felt like it wept for her lost sister, but she held Hyun’s hands like a lifeline even when she could not look at him.

“Don’t you _dare_ make this your fault,” she finally managed to choke out after a moment of stunned silence. “It was your mother who did this and no one else and I _refuse_ to let you put it on yourself and-“

“Kya, if I hadn’t come here, this never would have happened!”

“Do you really _think_ that?” Kya sobbed. “Do you _really_ think that you’re the reason for this?”

“I don’t see how I _can’t_ be!”

“Hyun, look at me.” At that, Kya finally raised her head, and though her face was trembling and wet with tears, she met his eyes. “Please, look at me.”

He did.

“She would have done that whether you were here or not,” Kya said, her voice soft even as it quivered. “And you thinking that it’s your fault when you’re as upset as any of us…Hyun, that’s _her_ talking. That’s _her_ voice in your head that’s telling you that.”

And then it hit her, again, all that she’d lost since sunrise, and she threw herself into Hyun’s arms, beginning to cry once more, her face buried in his shirt. He said nothing, but he wrapped his arms around her, and she let the familiar strength of his embrace close her in. He was safety, now, and though she had wanted to comfort him, she found herself asking for his comfort now without remorse.

“It isn’t _fair,”_ she sobbed, because it was all that she could think to say.

And it was true. Yangchen Oyama had been too young and too good and too full of unrealized potential and too _beloved_ to die and she had anyways. It was _cosmically_ unfair, this turn of events, and as Kya clutched at the shoulders of her husband’s tunic, she mourned the failure of justice just as acutely as she did Yangchen’s death.

Only later, tossing fitfully as she tried to sleep at the end of a day which had consisted of nothing but stiff, clipped conversation punctuated by bouts of tears, did Kya realize that her husband had not said a single word about his mother’s death.

Only as she crawled closer to him and laid her head to rest against his shoulder did Kya realize with horror that gaped like the mouth of a pitch-black chasm that, had this happened in twenty years or so, it could have been _she_ who’d had to set out to avenge her child.

Her _child._ And, apparently, another thing she could lose.

When she finally slept, it was with both hands protectively cradling her stomach.

* * *

The youngest of the Oyama children wandered the halls like a passing specter, and nobody had the heart to interrupt him anymore.

Some days he did not wander alone. The youngest Princess joined him some nights, clasping his hand, sometimes speaking to him, sometimes not. Others, the oldest was his companion; she would walk with him when she was no longer needed to sit in on meetings. She could have told him of the political upheaval of the past days, the frantic rush to put Prince San on the Earth Kingdom’s throne before a power vacuum swept in and stabilize the Matori Crisis, now that its instigator was dead, before the province went up in smoke. But she did not – she walked by his side in silence, and if Gyatso was grateful for her company, he did not say it.

(No one expected him to.)

Once, Sakari took to the halls with him, though the two were not close. That night, they both cried, though rare was the night when Gyatso let himself shatter. He hadn’t realized what his sister had meant to the second-youngest Princess; that night, he cried for two instead of one.

But most days he walked in silence, barely more than a shadow, fearing the places his mind would run to if he let it be still.

* * *

In the end, no one had to give much thought to the consequences of Hina’s decision; she’d already done that. She knew the moment that the haze of vengeance gave way to grief and some modicum of clarity returned to her that what she had done demanded a reaction. No justification, no matter how compelling, would undo the murder of a head of state. She knew this, and when everything within her told Hina Oyama to bow to grief and let the blade fall as it may, something stronger told her to stand, to keep her shoulders upright beneath the crushing weight of loss and make something of what remained of the shattered pieces of her life.

She’d known struggle all her life, faced unimaginable loss, and she had never been felled by it. She had been the children of lost parents, and become the parent of a lost child; more than once, she’d known death more intimately than life. She’d taken what happiness she’d been given along with the sorrow and she’d fought, tirelessly, _endlessly,_ to ensure that none who came after would ever face such suffering as she had.

She had failed. She always failed. And though she did not know if she had the strength to go on, she had to do this before she allowed herself to fall. So, two days later, she faced her best friend and squared her shoulders for one more impossible sacrifice.

“I think I need to step down.”

“Hina, you-“

“No, Zuko, I do.” She held up her hand as if to halt him. “I killed the Earth Queen. Even if her heir doesn’t demand retribution, someone will.”

“Hina, you don’t have to do this.”

“This is going to get out, Zuko.” Hina stepped closer, and she raised her eyes to meet his, fearless in her knowledge of how little else she stood to lose. “These things don’t stay quiet, and there’s going to be hell to pay if you’re actively employing the person who’s responsible when the truth comes to light.”

“Hina, you need to take time before you make a decision like this.” Zuko set his hands on her shoulders. “This…this isn’t the moment to make a life-altering choice.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Hina agreed. “But it has to. Life doesn’t always give us the choices we think we deserve.”

“You love this job, Hina,” Zuko said gently, brushing a stray tendril of hair out of her face. “And I don’t _care_ if you’re my Spymistress and I need you, I say that as your friend. I can’t let you give up something you love out of guilt in the heat of the moment.”

“Don’t you understand what the consequences are going to be if you _don’t_ let me quit?” Hina turned, flinching as he reached out to pull her back towards him. “Someone’s going to demand that you do a lot worse than fire me.”

“And I will deal with that.” He fixed her with the stoniest glare of which he was capable. “What I _won’t_ do is let you throw away something that means this much to you when you _just_ lost your daughter.”

“Why aren’t you _agreeing_ with me?” Hina turned away again, and this time he didn’t pull her back in. “Why are you trying to justify this when you should be _horrified_ by what I did?”

  
“Hina, if that had been my daughter, I would have done _exactly the same thing.”_

“Then you understand why I have to do this,” she said, turning to leave.

_Because if I didn’t have this job, my daughter would still be here,_ she thought but did not say.

“But what are you going to do?”

Hina turned in the doorway. “I need to get away from here,” she told him.

“And go…where?”

“I’ll be staying with an old friend. Someone from the League.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “Don’t worry about me, okay?”

“I’ll always worry about you, Hina,” he murmured, and suddenly she could not stand it anymore, and she ran back to him, burying herself in his arms and let his robes muffle her keening sobs. Neither said anything, but after a moment she felt his tears hit the back of her tunic.

There was no need for clearheadedness now, not even a need for words. There was no need to think of the husband who could barely look at her, the son who wandered the halls with a lost expression day and night, the daughter who would not eat or speak, the grandson whose mother could not care for him. There was no need to think of punishment, for this was the one she had chosen and the one she would receive. She could mourn the way she had never been able to before and hoped she’d never need to again.

But she could also wonder what Yangchen would say if she saw her now, and that was the most dangerous possibility of all.

* * *

“Hey, Yun, you hungry? I brought you some dinner.”

Ryuji had given up on getting a response from his wife days ago, but he couldn’t bear to stop trying, and he set the bowl down on their nightstand before sitting down next to her. “Yuna, you have to eat,” he murmured, his thumb stroking circles on her shoulder. “Could you do that for me? Just a few bites?”

He held the bowl of egg-drop soup – her favorite – in front of her, but she barely even looked at it.

  
“I’m not hungry,” she said weakly, though she didn’t even have the strength to push it away.

“You haven’t eaten in two days, Yun,” Ryuji reminded her. “You have to eat _something.”_

“I told you I wasn’t hungry.”

Sensing that he wasn’t going to succeed, Ryuji changed tactics. “If you won’t do it for me, can you do it for Sora?”

No answer. All he got for his efforts were wide, sad, sunken grey eyes.

Ryuji had never seen Yuna so tired before, nor so defeated, and it terrified him beyond measure; he redoubled his efforts. “Yun, _please,_ ” he begged. “You need to keep your strength up.” He held out the bowl again, but nothing had changed, and she still shook her head weakly to turn it down.

She’d been doing this for days now and he could not admit that he felt like he’d lost his wife and his sister-in-law in the same day.

“It’ll still be here when you want it,” he sighed, admitting defeat, and he crawled into the sheets beside her. He wanted to comfort her, to hold her in his arms and swear that things wouldn’t be so bleak forever, but he’d tried before, and she’d always gone stiff as a board and stayed that way; it was no use.

So he lay beside the person who mattered most to him in the world and felt a thousand miles’ distance between them.

* * *

It felt cruel to be embroiled in political debate barely a week after they’d lost someone so dear to them, but there was no way around it: the Earth Kingdom had to be stabilized. And no one like the idea of Prince San on its throne, but he was, at very least, cooperative.

So arrangements were made, competent officials within the Earth Kingdom bureaucracy identified and tapped for service, agreements drawn up. And though the Matori Province was still in turmoil, refugees still camped outside the city walls, the Fire Nation’s most capable official was absent with grief and two old colleagues for company in a backwater province, and absolutely no one knew if the Earth Kingdom’s new leaders would hold up or buckle under its weight, it was all they could do.

Prince San would take the throne, and they would do what they could to stabilize the Matori Province, and where they had failed, the world would pick up the pieces. And they would grieve, and they would wonder, but they would live, and life, though it had ended, would continue.

Yes: life would persist, just as it always did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: more fallout-coping; still reeling, Hina stays with old colleagues. 
> 
> [For those of you who know about the Hina prequel I keep swearing I'll write: any Cohort 6 fans out there? Be on the lookout for them!]


	27. Aftershocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The family continues to cope with the aftermath of Yangchen's death: Hina goes to visit an old colleague; Hyun attempts to right a wrong; Sana and Saki grieve; and Kya and Katara take a moment away from it all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COHORT SIX FANS, RISE!   
> For the six (6) people on the internet who I've ranted to about Hina's old Liberation League colleagues, who were created for a prequel about Hina's L.L. days that I may or may not ever write, this is our first real introduction to Cohort 6 (unless you count that Jiro reference in Chapter 24)! Have fun with that. 
> 
> Also, again, strong tonal whiplash with that final scene.

The roads were always muddy this time of year. Hina had forgotten that over the years, and her clothes were spattered with mud by the time she dismounted the ostrich horse-borne carriage she’d hired to take her to the town of Chiyu.

She couldn’t imagine a better place to escape her grief than this backwater farming town, and as she walked down the town’s dirt paths, no one turned to look at her. She’d taken pains to make herself as indistinctive as possible, hair down and black tunic tied over loose cotton trousers, and she could have been anyone, walking through these streets.

She wished she _were_ anyone else.

Hina hadn’t done this before, but she moved through the town as if she had. Running away had always come easily to her – bitterly, she thought it might’ve been a part of why she and her husband understood each other so well – and when she arrived at the door of an unassuming timber house just outside of the town center, she knocked without thinking. She considered calling out, but she refrained when she heard footsteps.

“Coming,” a voice called, and Hina could’ve cried at its familiarity, and at the face of the woman who opened the door. She froze in the doorframe, squinting in what seemed like confusion. “Hina?”

“Zijun,” Hina said softly. “It’s been a while.”

For a moment the two just stared at each other, as if they were not entirely convinced that the other was real. Zijun looked at Hina as if she wasn’t sure what had taken her so long, and Hina wasn’t even sure what to make of Zijun, fifty-one years old and still so stunningly gorgeous that it nearly hurt to look at her.

It shouldn’t have surprised Hina, though. Zijun Shi, onetime Liberation League vice-president, Cohort Six leader and combat specialist, had always been a heartbreaker.

“Hiding?” Zijun asked, ushering Hina in. She slipped her shoes off at the door and without asking another question, Zijun led her to a hallway bedroom. “Get yourself cleaned off and then meet me in the kitchen.”

Zijun didn’t bother to tell Hina where it was, but that, perhaps, was the effect of their history. Zijun had learned in the years she’d spent in the Liberation League with Hina – she’d been the tactician for Cohort Six, Zijun’s combat group, before becoming the group’s leader – that the younger woman’s mental faculties were astounding; there seemed no reason to inform her of something as mundane as the location of the kitchen, which Hina could easily find herself.

She didn’t have much energy to do more than throw down her bag, slip into a fresh set of identical clothes, and splash a little water on her hands and face before she rejoined Zijun, who’d set out rice cakes.

“Some things never change,” Hina said drily. Hospitality was expected but Zijun wasn’t likely to extend it warmly.

It was a well-known fact that Liberation League members’ homes had been all but unanimously opened to one another after the war; those who needed to hide or wanted to get away – from memories, from nagging families – often came to stay with one another. It was a support system they’d all needed when the war had left them scarred and without purpose, and though she’d never taken anyone up on the offer in the past, Hina was all too grateful to do it now.

“Shouldn’t you be in Caldera, Spymistress?” Zijun asked, taking a seat across from Hina.

“I quit,” Hina said. Zijun raised an eyebrow at the continual blandness of her tone.

“You quit your job?” Zijun’s other eyebrow rose to join the first one. “When and _why?”_

“My daughter is dead.”

Bluntness, Hina had found, hurt a thousand times less than the elaborate dance around the subject that most people chose to perform when faced with grief. Refusing to name her sorrow wouldn’t diminish it, and those whose flowery euphemisms and careful concealments refused to allow her to name it set grief to gnawing in her gut. Plainness left her with nothing more than pang, and she knew Zijun would understand that,

“I’m sorry,” Zijun replied, simple and sympathetic. She and Hina had grieved together enough over their years in the Liberation League to know how the other reacted to death, and she knew how Hina hated artifice.

“The Earth Queen did it.” She shoved part of a rice cake in her mouth with little regard for manners. “I killed her.”

“Good,” Zijun replied.

“There had to be consequences, so I resigned,” Hina explained. “I knew it would be worse if I left the punishment to someone else.”

“Smart,” Zijun remarked. “I’m sorry.”

  
She wished everyone were so easy; most, Hina was finding, thought themselves sympathetic but really had quite a bit less sympathy and a great deal less skill than they thought they did. Zijun – the way she knew how to read Hina, to say what she needed to hear, even though it had been decades since they’d last seen each other – was refreshing.

“Where’s Rin?”

“Out,” Zijun told her. “Getting…something, I can’t remember what. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you when he gets back.”

Hina knew this would be the time to apologize for her sudden arrival, but she knew Zijun would wave her off. This was what sisters in arms did for each other.

They were silent for a moment before Zijun spoke again. “If you’re not up to talking, I won’t keep you.”

“If I was up to talking, I’d have stayed home and let the Fire Lady get me a therapist,” Hina sighed, running a hand through her loose hair. It was peppered with silver now, but she had a feeling it would all be grey by the end of her visit. “Or let my husband try to _be_ one.”

“Then by all means, turn in,” Zijun told her. She knew this weariness well.

“Thank you, Zijun.” Hina pushed her chair back in and placed her still-folded cloth napkin neatly atop her plate.

“Of course.” Zijun looked down at her lap. “May I ask something?”

“Sure.”

“Which daughter?”

Hina closed her eyes for a moment. For all her belief in bluntness, in confronting in spirit what she ran from in body, she hadn’t said her daughter’s name since the night she had died.

“Yangchen,” Hina said, her breath catching on the word. “My middle. Yangchen.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Hina knew she meant it.

* * *

Hyun had really thought he could do this.

“I’m…I…I can’t believe…I’m so _sorry,”_ he stammered, and he realized rather quickly that he might’ve been a touch too optimistic in deciding he’d be able to get through this. “I’m so…I’m so _ashamed-“_

“Stop it.” Aang didn’t meet Hyun’s eyes, either. “Please, Prince Hyun. Stop it.”

“It’s just that I feel like it’s-“

“Your fault?” Aang said. “It’s _not._ You of all people should be the last one apologizing for…what happened.”

“But…you’re not mad?”

“Prince Hyun, I would be a much lesser man if I took this out on you.”

_Right. He’s the Avatar. It’s his job to say those things._

“Um.” Hyun cleared his throat. “Then…um. Wait, no. You know what? I’m _still_ sorry.” Now he couldn’t help but acknowledge the contempt rising in his throat. “Because your daughter was an amazing woman and it makes me so _mad_ that…that my own _mother_ would…”

_Take a child away from someone who deserved to have one so much more than she did._

“…would do that,” Hyun finished, lowering his eyes again. “I’m sorry. I’m probably making this worse, but…I had to say _something.”_

“That means a lot to us, Hyun.” Aang laid his hand on Hyun’s shoulder and when Hyun looked up, he was surprised at the placid resignation on his face. It reminded him of his own, almost, and-

  
“You know, you don’t have to pretend that everything is okay,” he said. “It’s…it’s okay to not have it together, you know that, right?”

Hyun briefly wondered if he had a single ounce of survival instinct left, speaking to the grieving Avatar like this, but something far stronger than however little will to stay out of the way of powerful people he had left was entirely overpowered by his sympathy.

“That’s…not something one hears often in my line of work.” Aang tried to chuckle as he normally would’ve but he sounded choked, as if tears would fall at any moment. “But…it’s good advice, Prince Hyun.”

“Kya taught me that,” he said without even knowing why. “I…do the same thing. Horrible things happen to me and I say that they’re fine. I think…” he hesitated. “It seems like you might be doing the same thing.” _What did Kya keep calling it?_ He fished around in his brain for the word before he found it. “Oh, right. Putting on a brave face, that was what she said. And…you know you don’t have to do that, right?”

“That’s…very wise of her,” Aang said hesitantly.

Hyun nodded. “I’m still learning, but it’s true. I mean, like…I get it, ‘cause I don’t really know you that well and you probably don’t like breaking down in front of people you barely know, and really I shouldn’t be that surprised because you’re the _Avatar_ and it’s, like, your _job_ to be a good person, but I just…thinking about Yangchen reminds me of _my_ daughter and how I’d feel if something happened to her and I realize that you must just be so _sad_ right now and I wish you didn’t…feel like you couldn’t show that.” Hyun looked up at the end of that, perhaps the longest sentence he’d ever managed to concoct, and met Aang’s eyes. “It’s okay to acknowledge that what happened wasn’t okay.”

“Your daughter?” Aang raised his eyebrows.

  
Hyun knew he was changing the subject – that was another thing Kya had taught him to identify, and he had found the knowledge quite useful – but he couldn’t resist taking the bait. “Yeah! We’re-“

_Wait, not now._ He realized with sinking dread that speaking of daughters now was probably not prudent. “Never mind,” he muttered.

“No, Hyun, go on. We could all use some good news right now.”

  
“How…?”

Aang smiled sadly. “I’m a father, too, Hyun. I know what to look for.”

“Huh. We really thought we were hiding that well.” Hyun scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “Well, in that case. Kya’s having a baby.”

Aang didn’t look the least bit surprised, bittersweet as his smile appeared to be. “A girl?”

Hyun nodded, unable to hold back his own smile. “We think so,” he said. “It’s kind of early, but…we think it’s a girl.”

_And an earthbender,_ Hyun didn’t add. Kya was fairly certain – she felt neither the warmth of a firebending baby nor the distinctive cool of a waterbending one – but she’d been unsure.

Either way, it didn’t seem prudent to bring it up now.

“I’m happy for you two, truly.” Aang’s eyes looked expectedly misty for the first time. “It’s…it’s a blessing.”

“You mean…kids?”

Aang nodded, angling his face ever so slightly out of Hyun’s line of sight. “Don’t…don’t let a day go by that you don’t remember that, Prince Hyun.” He inhaled shakily. “That you and the woman you love have a child, and…that you’re lucky that you do.”

Hyun was not a quick thinker. He wasn’t the type to read between lines with ease, and he rarely knew what people were getting at before they told him outright. He wasn’t one to know what someone was _really_ saying.

But he knew now that the Avatar was laying his soul and his grief-stricken heart bare to a near-stranger, and he was not one to take that lightly.

“I will, Avatar Aang,” he said gravely. “I love her, and I’ll love our child, and…I hope I can do that.”

“I am confident that you will, Prince Hyun.”

Hyun nodded, and he did not stay to watch the Avatar weep for his loss.

* * *

“ _The moon is high, the world is still, and now it’s time for_ -“

“Could you _quit_ that already?” Sakari poked her head out of her bedroom door. “You’ve been singing the same song for two straight hours!”

Sana, standing in the hallway, clutched her nephew to her chest protectively. “It’s the only thing he’ll sleep to,” she told her sister before she continued to walk. “ _And now it’s time for sleeping…”_

Sakari closed her door behind her and stepped into the hall to join her sister. “Sana,” she said softly, jostling her shoulder. “You’re going to collapse if you keep this up. When did you last sleep?”

“That isn’t important, Saki.” Sana pushed back a corner of Sora’s blanket that had fallen in his eyes. “He won’t sleep unless he’s being held, and I’m the one who was supposed to make sure he did.”

“That can’t possibly be true. How did Yuna and Ryu ever get any sleep?” Sakari narrowed her eyes. “Speaking of, where’s Ryu _now?”_

“Trying to get Yuna to eat, I think.” Worry creased Sana’s brow. “She’s not doing well.”

“Yeah, well, none of us are,” Sakari said bitterly. “That’s not an excuse.”

“Saki!” Sana’s eyes widened. “Her _sister_ just died! Can’t you cut her some slack?”

“She’s leaving someone else to care for her baby!” Saki threw up her hands. “How is that fair? How is _any_ of this fair?”

“It’s not, but it’s happening, and we’re the ones who _can_ help, Saki,” Sana replied, eyes flashing. “Why can’t you see that? Yeah, we’re all grieving, but we can’t just…abandon the people who need us!”

“No, but that’s just it. Sora doesn’t need _us._ He needs his mom and dad and not his seventeen-year-old aunt who’s barely even held a baby before this and-“

“You know what? I’m done listening to this.” Sana stormed off before she could hear her sister’s rebuttal. “Whatever’s gotten into you, that’s not my problem.”

“It’s not _fair!”_ Sakari called after her, her voice echoing through the empty hall. Sana paused and turned, fretting as the baby began to cry at the menacing echo of his aunt’s voice. “It isn’t _fair_ and none of us deserve this and _she_ didn’t deserve this and…and…” Sakari’s voice broke. “Sana, I miss her.”

  
In an instant, Sana’s expression shifted, and she rejoined her sister, pulling her into a one-armed embrace around a wailing Sora.

“I’m so sorry, Saki,” Sana murmured, stroking her sister’s trembling shoulders. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I miss her,” Sakari sobbed again. “I miss her so much and…and…”

“We all do,” Sana said, a lump rising in her throat.

“Not like I do.”

Sana didn’t know exactly what her sister meant, but she held her tighter in response anyways.

It was all they could do: cling tight to each other and hope for the best.

* * *

“So the situation is…stable?”

“Getting there.” Katara took a sip of the ginger tea her daughter had requested and glanced up at her with exhausted eyes. “San’s advisors have been a big help. One in particular – I think she used to work for the postal service, but I’ve heard good things – has been consistently fantastic. We’re heavily advising San to appoint her as his Foreign Minister.”

“Comeuppance,” Kya muttered drily. “I’m sure Hairy Toes would have a fit if he knew he was being replaced by a mail clerk from the Xiaoqin Prefecture.”

Katara nearly spat out her tea. “ _Hairy Toes?”_

“Oh, right, sorry.” Kya couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. “That’s what Hyun called Minister To.”

“You’ve done your research, I see,” Katara said with a knowing smile. “On the Cabinet and on your husband’s…habits.”

“Not relevant right now, but…sure.” Kya’s cheeks pinked. “So, how are you handling the refugee crisis?”

“Well, clearly, the hope is to stabilize and rebuild enough of their vacated villages that they can return, but they’re likely going to stay in the city for now.” Katara set her teacup back down on her saucer and reached for a lychee-nut biscuit. “Our Minister of Social Services is trying to connect as many of them as possible with employers who need workers, and we’ve got volunteers pouring out in droves to help however they can. It’s…heartening, to say the least.”

“That’s good.” Kya took another sip of tea. “So you’ve mostly got a handle on things?” 

“Hardly. Prejudice is more difficult problem to solve than a few burnt-down houses, and we can’t really stop the Fire Nationals in the area from scapegoating Earth Nationals. But…” Katara sighed, leaning back against the cushions. “We’re doing what we can.”

“Well, that’s good,” Kya murmured, staring into her teacup, and the two fell silent.

Katara, though, wasn’t about to let that continue.

“Now, is there something you wanted to tell me?” she asked with a sly smile.

“Um. Not that I can-“

“Kya, sweetheart, I know you’re pregnant.”

Kya nearly dropped her teacup. “Who told you that?”

Katara laughed and Kya’s heart clenched at the realization that she hadn’t heard that sound from _any_ of her loved ones in the weeks since Yangchen’s death. “No one needed to, Kya. I’m a healer, and besides that, I have five kids.”

“Oh. Um…” Kya looked down at her lap, frantically and covertly examining her dress for any sign that the ever-so-slight curve of her growing belly was visible. “Yeah. I am.”

“That’s wonderful, Kya,” Katara said with the first genuine smile Kya had seen from her in a while. “Sudden, but wonderful.”

  
“Um. Thanks.” Kya’s cheeks burned, and every other response she could think to give would be unbelievably embarrassing.

“It wasn’t hard to figure out, Kya. Hyun’s been staring,” Katara teased.

“Oh, Agni, he _has?”_

“Naturally.” Katara smirked in her daughter’s direction. “That man is so in love with you it almost hurts to look at.” 

  
“Oh. Um…”

“And don’t think I haven’t seen the way you look at him, Kya.”

“Meaning…?”

“I’m glad he’s so good to you,” Katara said, pressing her daughter’s hand. “It’s…almost improbable, all of this working out, but you have no idea how relieved I am that it did.”

“Me, too,” Kya admitted.

  
She wondered if it were selfish, at a time like this, to be content, to be happy that what could have ended in disaster had brought her such joy. But here, she could not bring herself to be unhappy for anybody’s sake.

Perhaps it was selfish, but for the first time in two weeks, Kya felt light.


	28. Last Resorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hina comes to a decision; Ryuji makes a last-ditch effort to help Yuna snap out of her all-consuming grief; Kya and Hyun attend San's coronation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise - PROMISE - that the next chapter will be fluff. Scout's honor. More Cohort 6 references here, for those very few of you who like them! WE HAVE A CHAERIN APPEARANCE. (I know a lot of y'all ship them...sorry, y'all, Haang endgame, but bones have been thrown.)

“Agni, it feels like that all happened a century ago.” Hina sipped her cup of mulberry tea, too tired to bother telling Zijun that it was both lukewarm and ill-brewed.

“It really does,” Zijun agreed with a heavy sigh. “I guess even now, I sometimes I feel like life stopped the day they signed the treaty, and it…just never really got started again.”

“I thought I’d feel like that, too,” Hina admitted. “But I don’t. I guess I got a lucky break with my job and all, and…I had new things to worry about.”

“You’re lucky.” In this light, eyes sunken above dark circles, Zijun almost looked her age. “You had a prestigious government position, a husband, kids, _purpose._ I had a backwater farming town and a husband I barely wanted.”

Hina didn’t bat an eyelash at Zijun’s bitterness – she’d often felt the same way. “More gained is just more to lose,” she replied flatly, the pang she felt at the mention of Yangchen diminished but still present. “And you and Rin seem to be doing fine.”

“We came to appreciate each other, yes,” Zijun admitted. “But it didn’t replace what we both lost.”

Hina nodded weakly. Her old colleagues had lost much to the war – Zijun’s fiancé, Rin’s parents, two members of Cohort Six – and though Hina had been able to put the loss of those two partners, one her best friend and a the other a girl whose opinion of Hina had never been entirely clear, to the back of her mind over the years, she knew that Rin and Zijun hadn’t had the same success. They’d married out of sheer desperation a few years after the war’s end, and though they had loved each other deeply before they did so, there had been nothing romantic about the choice. They were partners, more than anything, and the only two people who knew what the other had been through; the match made sense.

Hina thought they might love each other now, after thirty years, but she wasn’t going to ask.

“You’re lucky you eventually got there,” Hina sighed.

“You’re one to talk.”

Hina sighed, setting her teacup down and laying her cheek against her open palm. “Hardly.”

“What happened to the whole soulmates thing?” Zijun asked. “You know, the Avatar and the Spymistress? That whole deal?”

“He could barely look at me after I did it, Zijun.”

“Oh, right. Pacifist. I’m sorry.” Zijun gazed down into her tea. “Did you ever talk about it?”

Hina nodded. “He said he couldn’t bring himself to be mad at me,” she said. “But…I know he’s _something.”_

  
“Distant?”

“More like…he doesn’t see me the same way.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Hina,” Zijun said softly. “At least, not permanently.”

“But-“

“Did you see me any differently when you found out what I did to the men who captured my fiancé?” Zijun asked.

“Well, I knew never to get on your bad side, but…no.” Hina shrugged. “I think I was a little bit too in awe of you to think less of you for that.”

“See? Exactly.” Zijun reached across the table and pressed her hand. “He loves you, Hina. He’ll come back to you.”

  
“ _I’m_ the one who ran away, Zijun.”

“But I know you won’t stay.” Zijun met Hina’s eyes now. “You never were good at staying away, even when no one would blame you for it.”

“What does _that-“_

“Jiro,” Zijun said. “Chaerin and I practically had to put you in a headlock when you saw that the factory was about to blow and he wasn’t back.”

“Oh, Agni, _Chaerin…”_

“I’m…I’m sorry.” Regret flashed across Zijun’s face at the hollow guilt on Hina’s. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

_Not him. Not her. Not when you’re grieving._

“No, it’s fine,” Hina said weakly. “It’s easier to think about those losses than this one.”

“I understand, Hina-“

“No, you don’t.” Hina pressed her eyes closed. “Until last month, I didn’t think I could feel any guiltier than I did when we left Jiro in that factory, or when they took Chaerin instead of me. I mean…they died because of _us._ Chaerin hated me so much and yet she _let_ them capture her instead of me and…and…” she took a deep breath. “And her last words were ‘I love you.’ _I love you!_ To the girl she hated, who she was probably going to die protecting! And I didn’t…oh, Agni, I didn’t…”

“Hina. Hey.” Zijun reached across to press her hand again. “It’s…it’s okay. You don’t have to talk about this.”

“But I do,” she continued shakily. “I never got to mourn them, so I just pretended I’d moved on. But _now…_ now I do, and it wasn’t my friend or my rival who died because of me, it was my _daughter.”_

“It wasn’t your-“

“The Earth Queen was trying to kill _me.”_ Hina hadn’t been able to tell anyone this in all of six weeks. “The only reason they killed Yangchen instead was because we look… _looked_ so similar.”

“Oh, Agni, Hina…”

“And I tried to save her,” she said, voice wobbling on the verge of tears, “but I _didn’t,_ and…now I have to live with knowing that.”

“Hina, you couldn’t have done anything.”

“But I _could_ have! I _should_ have!”

“Hina…”

“I carried her, I nearly died just to get her here in the first place, I raised her, I _loved_ her…how do you think it feels to know that I also _killed_ her?!?”

Neither knew how to respond to that, so they fell silent until Hina looked up a moment later.

  
“I can’t stay here,” she murmured, getting up and pushing in her chair.

  
“No, you can’t,” Zijun said approvingly. “I mean, not that it’s not good to see you, but…”

“I have to fix things,” Hina finished.

“Well. It’s been good, Hina.”

“Thank you, Zijun.”

She was gone within the hour, and as the carriage clattered over the dirt roads leading away from the village, Hina closed her eyes against the fading daylight and hoped that, this time, she would not be too late.

* * *

“Do you want to go home?”

It was truly a last-ditch effort: Ryuji had been steadfastly determined to stay in the Fire Nation until his family had had enough time to recover, at least somewhat, from their grief. But it had been three months now, and nothing had improved; Aang and Gyatso still wandered about, listless shells of themselves, and Hina hadn’t returned, and Yuna would eat and speak and move only when given absolutely no choice. Sana still cared for Sora most days, though Ryuji did what he could and Kya, whose rather intense nesting instinct surprised nearly everyone but Katara, had begun to help. His family seemed to be readjusting but Yuna’s didn’t, and Yuna herself was the worst-off of all.

  
Ryuji had done everything he could to be patient with her, he truly had. He’d coaxed her to eat but never forced her; he’d made sure Sora was cared for but he’d never lorded it over her, not when her grief seemed too deep for her to break the surface; he’d left her alone when she wanted him to. But she wasn’t getting better, and he was desperate now.

  
He wanted his wife back, and he was prepared to do anything he had to.

“ _Yes,”_ Yuna breathed, her eyes widening. She sat bolt upright, though she fell back against the pillows a second later, too weak from days without food to bear the sudden movement.

“You want to go?” Ryuji asked her. “To the Air Temple?”

“Yes,” she repeated, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Then I’ll take you,” he said softly, and he did. He wondered, as he held her close atop Meng’s saddle – his arms around her, hers around Sora – what he’d do if this gamble didn’t pay off, but he didn’t give the thought much attention.

Quite simply, this _had_ to work. He was at the end of his rope, out of ideas, and unwilling to let his wife surrender to her grief even if he had no earthly clue how to help her. He would do anything, though he didn’t know what that even _meant,_ to make her see that there was still much to live for. He’d do anything to ensure that his son didn’t grow up without a mother, that he did not leave him to be raised by countless Air Acolytes and a father who could never do the work of two parents alone.

But it was never so simple as that.

Yuna Oyama had been his best friend and his constant companion for as long as they’d been alive, and the love of his life for as long as he’d known what that meant. She had been the best of his life, and he’d thought she always _would_ be. And now, holding the half-empty shell of the woman he loved, Ryuji realized with fresh desperation that she had to stay that way.

He had to do _something,_ and as he helped her down from Meng’s saddle only to see her mobbed immediately by dozens of curious Acolytes whom he had to shoo off with promises that they’d be able to meet their leader’s baby a little later, he hoped against hope that this was it.

* * *

“I’m a _Waterbender._ This is _ridiculous._ I should not be _seasick!”_

“Um…sorry?” Hyun said, blinking wide, nervous eyes at Kya. She stood at the washbasin across their cabin, her arms crossed, and he figured he was right to be a little bit afraid.

  
“I hate this,” she groaned, crossing the room to the bed – barely more than a cot, so small that they had to cling to each other just so they wouldn’t be tossed onto the floor by an above-average swell – and flopping down on its creaky mattress. “I thought this was supposed to go away after the first three months, but it _didn’t.”_

“Um.” Hyun paused to consider his next words. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Those, he’d found, were the magic words when dealing with one’s pregnant, seasick, and _incredibly_ irritable wife.

“No,” she groaned, burying her face in a pillow. He sat down beside her, taking her hand and giving it an encouraging squeeze as the bed creaked under his weight.

“We’ll be in Ba Sing Se in a couple of days,” he said gently, prying the pillow away from her face. “It’ll be okay.”

  
“I’m tired of being sick,” she sighed. “And I’m _especially_ tired of my own element being responsible for it.”

“I know, baby, I know. Just, um…hang in there?”

She smacked him with the pillow she was still holding. “I’d like to see _you_ try!”

“That’s…probably fair.”

“Considering that _you_ did this to me?” Kya glared up at him. “Yeah. Entirely fair.”

“Okay, _you_ were the one who asked for a do-over!”

“ _You_ were the one who told me you’d go crazy if I didn’t kiss you!”

“Yeah, and I meant it.” Hyun smirked. “For the record, I don’t regret it.”

Kya fell silent for a moment, shifting so she could lay her head in Hyun’s lap. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, as if in pain, and Hyun began to work the tangles in her hair with his fingers, methodically picking out each knot. “Do you?” he asked after a few silent moments of this.

“It’s…not that I regret it,” Kya admitted. “But I’m _scared.”_

“I know you are. So am I.”

“No, but…” Kya opened her eyes again. “I have _no_ idea how to be a mother, Hyun. I am, like, the _least_ maternal person alive, and…I just remember how I always was with my younger siblings, and how everyone thought I was unhinged as a kid, and how _my_ mom was, and I…I just don’t know if I can do this.” She closed her eyes again. “If I can make sure that this baby doesn’t grow up to be a total mess.”

“Okay, if you’re talking about that time you told Sana she was an accident-“

Kya smacked Hyun with a pillow again. “I _knew_ I was going to regret telling you that.”

“-you were _seventeen._ I don’t think it’s fair to you to base all of this off of stuff you did when you were a stupid teenager.”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“Sorry, sorry. I mean, teenagers are just…really stupid. It’s not personal!”

“You really don’t have to panic. I’m teasing you.” Kya smiled lazily up at him. “Anyway.”

“Anyway…Kya, you’re not the one who should be worried here,” Hyun continued. “I mean, at least you know what good parents look like. _I_ have no idea.”

“Hyun…”

“I know,” Hyun sighed. “You’re all worried while I’m…I almost feel guilty for being so excited. Do I even deserve to when…when I don’t know what I’m doing, and until last week I thought that parents who hurt their kids were normal?”

“Hyun, can I ask you to do something?”

“Of course.”

“Okay.” Kya took his hand and guided it to rest against her stomach, still small but visibly curved now. “Picture our baby.”

“Um…”

  
“No, I’m serious.” She pressed her hand atop his. “Just…I don’t know, imagine what you think our baby is going to look like. However you want. You got that?”

Hyun closed his eyes and nodded after a moment. “Yeah. I do.”

“Okay, good.” She released his hand, though he left it pressed to the fabric of her dress where it stretched across her stomach. “Now picture…life with that kid you just came up with. Again, whatever you want. Growing up. Imagine what her life is going to be like. Got it?”

Again, he took a moment, and then nodded.

“Okay.” Now Kya sat up, taking his hands. “What did you see?”

“Um, like, what did she look like?”

“No, that doesn’t matter. What’d you see when you thought about her life?”

“Oh, that.” Hyun smiled sheepishly. “Teaching her to earthbend. That was an easy one.”

“And?”

“Us sleeping, and…her climbing up on the bed and trying to get us to wake up.”

Kya chuckled. “I see you can’t get me out of your head.”

“Hey, can you really blame me?” he leaned in for a quick kiss. “I actually know what you look like.”

She rolled her eyes fondly. “Anyways. Do you know what you _didn’t_ see in any of those scenarios you just came up with?”

“Um…?”

“You hurting her,” Kya said softly. “Ever. In any way.”

“Oh.” Hyun looked up at her. “I guess I didn’t.”

“I asked you for your knee-jerk reaction, Hyun,” Kya said. “And what was it?”

“Um, I don’t know?”

“ _Loving_ her,” Kya pointed out, squeezing his hands emphatically. “Everything you know about parents is painful but the first thing you pictured when you imagined _yourself_ as a parent was _love._ I don’t think you realize how remarkable that is, Hyun.”

“What do you mean?”

“The fact that you’re so _good_ when no one has ever taught you to be that way,” Kya told him. “It’s…it’s almost improbable that you turned out this way, but here you are.”

“It’s nothing special,” he demurred.

“No, Hyun, it _is.”_ She leaned forwards, pressing her forehead against his. “And I know you’re going to be a great dad.”

“And you’re going to be-“

“Debatable, but I’ll take it-“

“-let me _finish,_ Kya. A great mom.”

“You sure about that?”

He kissed her, briefly, again. “Extremely.”

She smiled and kissed him again, soundly this time.

“Aren’t you seasick?” Hyun asked when she pulled back.

“What, got a problem with this?”

Hyun grinned. “Of course not. Just wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Kya grabbed the collar of his tunic to pull him in. “I doubt you’ll do that,” she said, and kissed him for good measure. “Gotta get this out of my system before we’ve got all those prying eyes to dodge at the coronation.”

“I like the way you think.”

  
“Then shut up and kiss me, Prince.”

He was all too happy to oblige.

* * *

It was rather difficult for any one event or personage to command the attention of those who’d been invited to attend the sudden coronation of Prince San of the Earth Kingdom. Speculation about the circumstances of the event themselves, shady as it was, already claimed enough minds to take much of the attention away from the proceedings themselves. Half of the attendees were abuzz as they tried to puzzle out what had _really_ been behind the previous Queen’s death, and why her son did not look the least bit upset about it. And as to the other half…well, there was plenty to entertain them.

The Avatar, for one. Many wondered at his reticence, when he was normally so jovial in company like this. He’d had to appear at hundreds of events in the past decades, and never had he seemed so miserable as he did today, sitting through the proceedings with a listless expression only seen on the rare occasions when he raised his eyes. And his wife, always his companion at such events, was nowhere to be found, nor their children; people tended to wonder at their absence.

There was also the matter of the conspicuous absence of _other_ heads of state: neither the Fire Lord nor the Fire Lady had chosen to attend, and the leadership of neither Water Tribe had elected to be there, either, instead sending representatives. As to the Fire Nation, it had been a simple decision to send the second-born Princess, married as she was to the Earth Kingdom heir’s younger brother.

And _that,_ too, was its own can of worms.

The announcement of the Prince’s engagement had made the rounds months ago, and now, just shy of a year later, it was rather shocking to the same aristocrats who’d viciously decried the half-Water Tribe princess to whom Hyun had been promised to see the two walking arm-in-arm, smiling and, for all intents and purposes, very much in love. Prince Hyun was ever the attentive husband, and Kya’s tired smiles in return for his gentle but insistent assistance could not be mistaken for anything but genuine. Some, who’d noticed the way Kya had bolted from the table without warning the night of the pre-coronation banquet as soon as a platter of sliced fish was brought out, thought they had an idea why, though most brushed it off as ridiculous upon hearing the theory.

But _all_ of that paled in comparison to the speech that the Crown Prince chose to give before he was crowned.

_Apologizing?_ Went the scandalized whispers. _To the Fire Nation?_ It seemed entirely too scandalous to be true. But each tidbit seemed more lurid than the last: San’s admission that his mother had been inflaming tensions with the intention of luring the Fire Nation into violating the peace accords, his acknowledgement that the former Foreign Minister had been responsible for the killing of an important Fire National (he did not deign to say which one) in an attempt to assassinate the former Spymistress, fed the waiting ears of the attendees with as much shocking detail as they could have ever hoped for.

But those prudent enough to pay attention to something else that day would have noticed the Fire Nation Princess, hand protectively pressed to her stomach, approach the Avatar, his head bent and his eyes teary, and wrap her arms around her, soon joined by her husband. They would have noticed the couple holding onto their dear old friend like a lifeline, and perhaps they would’ve known what had really befallen them.

But few did: it was in the very nature of the guests at these sort of things to raze the forest in order to get a better look at the trees, and those who noticed the three riding out a wave of grief they thought they’d been able to outrun together.


	29. Daybreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slowly, light returns to Caldera.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is cheesy, rushed, incoherent, and an absolute mess, but I am giving it to y'all anyway, because HYUNYA. BABY.

Light returned to Caldera not in a sunburst but in droplets, one ray at a time managing to break its way through the clouds that had shrouded the palace in the months since Yangchen Oyama’s death. Light returned in candle-like flickers, added to sconces one at a time until they’d built up enough to light every chandelier in the palace’s dust-covered ballrooms.

Light returned in the form of a palanquin, dropping its inhabitant at the palace steps and leaving her to walk them alone.

Her husband, grievances forgotten in the elation of seeing her again, would not allow her to do that; it had always been she who flew down those marble stairs to meet Aang, but now he took them three at a time to meet Hina, and when he embraced her with such force that she nearly fell back. He held her close, and through her tears she apologized, over and over, and held her husband for dear life, for she knew now that she loved him too much to let him go, that she had been remiss in running when they had needed each other. He told her she had merely been doing what she needed to do; later he’d admit that he’d felt betrayed when she ran and left him in her wake, that she’d hurt their Yuna, who’d needed them, more than he could say, but now he simply held her.

The Avatar and the Spymistress, though they could hardly be called that anymore, would face what remained of their grief together.

Light returned as messenger hawks were dispatched to every corner of the Four Nations, Save-the-Date slips tucked in their claws, and in the form of the embossed cards that followed a month or so later through the mail.

The Crown Princess’ wedding had hardly been a priority in the chaos of the past year, but everybody needed a distraction now, and it was as good a one as they could hope for. The bride’s sisters laughed and made wink-nudge comments at every turn, poking merciless fun at their oldest sibling as tailors buzzed around her with pins and fabric and trimming. Sana practiced her sister’s wedding hairstyle until she could recreate its elaborate braids in her sleep, so determined was she to be a part of Izumi’s wedding day; Sakari terrorized the seamstresses with her constant snacking, forever threatening to sully the delicate fabric of what would become Izumi’s gown with her ever-present bag of fire flakes. Kya, heavily pregnant and rather smug, doled out as much unsolicited marriage advice as her sister would tolerate. And, of course, Izumi’s three sisters invariably fawned over her fiancé with infinitely more patience and sweetness than they ever did her, which she pretended was irritating but was really quite flattering.

(Besides, his blushing gratitude at their attentions was really rather adorable, and she told him so.)

And so Izumi, for so long the one no one had any need to pay attention to, had her day in the sun.

Yes, slowly, light returned to Caldera, and though the road was long, it was no longer quite so dark. 

* * *

**_Northern Air Temple_ **

****

It had been all but impossible for Yuna to remain entirely withdrawn once she had arrived at the Air Temple. There had simply been too many people with questions to ignore, and slowly, as she let them flood her with congratulations and condolences alike, she began to open up to the world again; she ate, and would venture outside sometimes, hold Sora, talk to the Air Acolytes. She’d more often than not be seen clinging to her baby and more than once, when she had thought she was alone, Ryuji had overheard her murmuring apologies, bouncing Sora on her shoulder and trying not to cry. When the Acolytes, perhaps even more eager to see Yuna restored to her usual spunk than Ryuji was, took it upon themselves to celebrate his first birthday in as grand a fashion as they could manage, she simply smiled and allowed him to be passed around and even, as she watched, leaned on her husband’s shoulder.

That, more than anything, gave him hope. She’d do a lot of things she probably didn’t feel up to for the good of the Air Acolytes, but affection would be entirely her choice. He knew that was the nexus, really, and the most reliable way he could track her recovery. She had not touched him of her own will in months before she’d started to let those casual touches slip; he knew it meant something, for if she hadn’t been willing to feign normalcy all these months, she wouldn’t now.

He was right.

Ryuji had all but collapsed into bed at the end of the night, exhausted by what seemed to be as much of an excuse for the Air Acolytes to let out their pent-up energy than it was a birthday party, but Yuna had not followed straightaway. She’d dallied as she got ready to turn in, lingering a beat too long at the dresser where she’d been looking for a nightgown and taking just a little bit longer than usual to change. When she finally did join him, her expression was nervous and pinched.

“Yuji?” she murmured, her voice wavery in the still night air.

“Yes, Yuna?” Ryuji asked, his heart pounding. _She hasn’t called me that in months,_ he realized with a thrill.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, curling in on herself on the opposite side of the bed.

“For what?” Ryuji asked, restraining himself from touching her even though every fiber of his being cried out in protest.

“For going away,” she said, lifting her eyes to meet his.

“You were grieving, Yuna. You don’t have to apologize for that.”

“I neglected Sora,” she said guiltily, “and I made everyone else worry about me when they had enough to deal with and…and…I hurt you, and I’m _sorry.”_

“Yun, _no…”_

“Yuji,” she choked, and in an instant she’d thrown herself at him, her arms wrapping around his shoulders as she cried. Her shoulders shook and he braced them, burying his face in the crook of her neck like he’d wanted to do for so long. “Yuji, I _missed_ you.”

“I missed you too,” he breathed, squeezing her shoulders gently. “But you don’t have to apologize.”

She didn’t respond, muffling a sob in his shoulder, and even as Ryuji’s heart broke for her it swelled to know that it was _he_ she’d come to when she was ready to begin healing. Slowly, her frantic sobs faded, and he finally spoke again.

“I love you, Yuna,” he told her as he smoothed circles into the fabric of her nightclothes. “I just want you to feel okay again, and…I don’t know how to help, but I’ve been trying, and I’ll do _anything-“_

“Ryuji, I want you to kiss me.”

He had to blink to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. “Huh?”

“Dear Agni, Ryuji, _kiss me.”_ She lifted her head and looked up at him with steely resolve. “It’s been _months_ and I miss you and I want you to-“

He did not have to be told twice.

“I love you so much,” he murmured when she broke the kiss, his fingertips brushing her jaw.

“Me, too,” she said sleepily, and she tucked herself under his chin just as she always had before.

“Goodnight, my Yuna.”

She snuggled up against him contentedly. “Goodnight, my Ryuji.”

This time, when he held her, she did stiffen, and she did not pull away, and when he woke in the morning she clung to him still.

And that was when he knew that light had returned to the Northern Air Temple.

* * *

**_~ Caldera City, A Few Months Later ~_ **

“Um…please don’t cry!”

“What am I _supposed_ to do?” Kya fixed her husband with her stoniest glare as most of the nearby guards flinched at her volume. She stumbled, clutching her stomach, as Hyun attempted to help her to the appointed room, flustered as could be. “If you’ve got any suggestions- _ah!”_

“Areyouokay?” Hyun asked frantically, his words coming out in a single, near-incoherent blur in his worry.

“I’m in _labor,_ idiot! Of course I’m not _okay!”_

“Please let me carry you-“

“Absolutely _not!”_

“All right,” Hyun muttered, nevertheless supporting most of Kya’s weight as they made their way down the hall.

He could’ve cried with relief when they arrived and the Fire Lady took over, face grave and sleeves rolled back. Surely she would know how to-

“If you think you’re getting out of this one, Hyun, you are _dead wrong!”_ Kya shouted, and at that, he realized two things: firstly, that he hadn’t moved an inch since Katara had taken Kya’s arm and guided her to the bed; and secondly, that there did _not,_ in fact, appear to be anything to be done for Kya’s pain.

He’d tried to read what he could on childbirth, and he’d asked anyone he thought might be knowledgeable for advice, but he’d realized about five minutes into Kya’s labor that, in actuality, none of his research was a substitute for experience. He’d barely spoken to a woman outside his family before he’d come here, let alone a pregnant one; this was an entirely foreign experience, and one he was beginning to think he might not have the stomach or the heart for. Nevertheless, he sat by Kya’s side, and tried to soothe her.

Sadly, it didn’t last, and not even his wife’s indignant cries were enough to keep the world from receding into vague, formless black.

* * *

“All right, who gets to wake up Daddy Dearest here?”

Sana’s face immediately blanched. “Um. Not it.”

Izumi shook her head. “Really, Saki?”

“What?” Sakari shrugged helplessly. “Someone’s gotta do it!”

“Yeah, with _smelling salts,_ not _enough force to cause a heart attack_ ,” Izumi sighed. “Really, Saki. It’s like you’ve never seen someone faint before.”

“Shouldn’t it be me?”

The room – entirely too packed with all three sisters, honorary brother, parents, and assorted servants – fell silent at the sound of Kya’s voice, strong even in exhaustion.

“Um, I mean, if you want to,” Saki said, chastised. “Sorry.”

Kya smiled tiredly. “No, it’s fine. Just…give us the room, maybe?”

“I think that’s fair,” Katara told her remaining children (and petulant husband, who didn’t appreciate being denied the opportunity to observe his granddaughter), and they reluctantly cleared the room.

At that, Kya squeezed her husband’s shoulder, slumped against the bed. “Hyun, wake up,” she said softly, unsure if he could hear her. “Hyun?”

“Mmrgh,” he groaned, beginning to stir. “Wha’ happened?”

“You kind of…fainted,” Kya said, unable to suppress a giggle. “Looks like you don’t have the stomach for this stuff.”

“What st- _oh.”_ Hyun raised his eyes. “Wait, I missed it?”

“Only the worst part,” Kya reassured him, leaning over to kiss his forehead. “So…yeah. We…have a daughter now.”

“We have a daughter,” Hyun muttered under his breath, reaching over to stroke his newborn daughter’s tiny cheek. She stirred against Kya’s chest and she noted with fond amusement that she could see the precise moment that her husband’s heart melted just by watching his expression change.

“She needs a name,” Kya murmured, shifting the baby so Hyun could get a better look at her. “I know we talked about some, but…”

“None of them seemed quite right,” Hyun finished, wrapping his arm around her back and resting his chin against her shoulder.

“I…had an idea that I didn’t tell you about,” Kya admitted, glancing over at him.

“Yes?”

He’d have given her anything in that moment, and she knew it, so she took a breath and continued. “Xinyi,” she said, her finger brushing the baby’s cheek. “I found it when we were looking at names and thought about it, and I didn’t think it would work, but now that I see her, she’s…she’s a Xinyi for sure.”

“Xinyi?” Hyun tried it on for size. “That’s an Earth Kingdom name, right?”

Kya nodded. “Do you like it?”

  
“Xinyi,” he repeated, eyes beginning to light up. “I love it.”

“Aren’t you going to ask why I picked it?”

“Um…I figured it was just because it was pretty.”

“No,” Kya murmured. “It’s the meaning that I liked.”

“Which is?”

“’Happy Heart,’ roughly,” Kya said, biting her lip as she smiled sheepishly. “Cheesy, right?”

“Well, yeah, but I love cheese.”

Kya elbowed his ribs, and he wondered how she still had the energy for that but didn’t choose to question it. “It makes sense, right?” she glanced at Hyun uncertainly.

“Of course it does,” he answered instantly, and she knew he understood.

Happiness had been fleeting in their childhoods and even more so in the past months. She suspected it was all either of them, or anyone who loved the hours-old princess, wanted for their daughter, and it only made sense, after all, to name her for that wish.

“Xinyi,” she murmured, and her daughter’s eyes fluttered open as if she already knew the sound of her name. “Hi.”

“Green eyes,” Hyun murmured. “Looks like she takes after her dad.”

“Oh, shut up,” Kya huffed affectionately. “Think we should let the-“

“Okay, time’s up, people!” Sakari announced, flinging the door open, and Hyun had to resist the urge to skitter away in the universal gesture for ‘it’s not what it looks like’.

It seemed rather pointless at this point in time, so he kissed the side of Kya’s head again and didn’t move an inch.

_I love you,_ he mouthed as her sisters began to fawn and baby Xinyi made the rounds.

And after all these months, she responded, though silently, without hesitation.

_I love you too._


	30. I Can See the Chain Extending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life goes on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to sob, please listen to this as you read: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1xYDQUo3Cc
> 
> Guys, I can't believe it. This chapter brings the story of "The Waiting Game" to a close. I honestly cannot even fathom what it's going to feel like to know that this universe, which has come to mean so, so much to me, has wrapped up. I'm tearing up just as I write this, for as insignificant a blip as this story might be on the face of the fandom, it has my whole heart. To those of you who've been with me all the way, _thank you_. Your support has meant more to a simple girl who loves to tell stories than words could ever express. Thank you, thank you, thank you - to quote the not-so-immortal words of TWG!Zuko, you are all the sun for whom I rise and the moon for whom I've fallen and every star in my sky. 
> 
> _Thank you._

**_Six Months/One Year_ **

****

They did not remember their first meeting.

Granted, Xinyi had barely been six months old when her cousin arrived in the Fire Nation, and neither could do anything more than blink wide eyes at the other as their parents greeted each other.

  
Nevertheless, they seemed to display a sort of solidarity from the very inception of their friendship.

(Namely: Xinyi, torn from her father’s arms by a crowd of overzealous relatives, let her displeasure be known, _loudly,_ and soon Sora was crying as loudly as his cousin.)

“Wow, you _really_ don’t like me,” Ryuji teased, rocking his niece until she calmed. “I’m almost insulted. Sora never hated his aunts this much.”

“He still cries the minute Sakari comes near him,” Yuna pointed out, her chin resting on her husband’s shoulder as she watched Xinyi settle into his arms and then, _finally,_ quiet, wide green eyes blinking up at them. Kya, holding Sora, glanced up at them and smiled, only to roll her eyes fondly when she met her husband’s panicked eyes.

“Baby, she’ll be fine,” Kya said, shaking her head.   
  


“But-“

“Hyun.” She knocked her shoulder into Hyun’s, which was about the only touch she could manage with Sora in her arms. “She’s going to be _fine._ Yuna’s probably more careful than you are.”

“I take offense at that!”

“I, for one, think it’s sweet.” Izumi sidled up to the group, leaning her head against her sister’s shoulder and trying not to smack her with the elaborate hairpiece she’d been obliged to wear.

Hyun couldn’t help but smile at his sister-in-law’s praise. “Congratulations, Princess,” he told her. “And thank you.”

“Of course.” Izumi beamed, reaching over to squeeze his arm. The group fell into companionable silence for a moment before, noticing the panic returning to Hyun’s face, Ryuji handed Xinyi back to him, taking Sora in return. His features relaxed at the comfortable weight of Xinyi against his shoulder and he could not resist planting a soft kiss to the crown of her head.

(Kya, watching, didn’t care if everyone could tell that she was melting into an incoherent puddle of affection on the spot. It was simply too precious for words, the way her husband doted on their daughter.)

“Where’s Hideo?” Ryuji asked after a momemt, glancing up from what appeared to be some sort of staring contest with Sora. “Don’t you guys have to be…I don’t know, doing stuff?”

“Nope, no stuff to be doing.” Izumi shrugged innocently. “I figured the kids’ table might be more interesting than whoever I was talking to before.”

“You don’t even remember?” Kya asked, incredulous. “Who are you and what did you do with my sister?”

“Oh, lay off,” Yuna teased. “Newlyweds…you know what they’re like.”

Kya and Hyun shared a glance that almost immediately devolved into hysterical laughter.

“No,” Kya wheezed as soon as she’d caught her breath. “No, I don’t think I do.”

Xinyi squirmed against Hyun’s shoulder and he pressed his hand to her back so she wouldn’t slip. “I’m surprised you managed to get away,” he commented, glancing over at Izumi once he was sure that Xinyi was secure.

“You can thank my dad for that.” Izumi smiled fondly. “He said I looked like I was stressed and told me to, and I quote, ‘go snuggle some babies or something.’”

“Well, good luck with that,” Kya chuckled, gesturing towards her husband. He glanced over at Izumi warily, tightening his grip on Xinyi. “See? Told ya.”

“Well, you can snuggle ours, then,” Yuna told her. Sora looked rather put-out at this, but he stayed quiet, staring up at his aunt with silent judgement written all over his face.

They did not remember their first meeting, nor did anyone, really, for it was hardly the most memorable moment of Izumi and Hideo’s wedding. That honor would inevitably go to the many, _many_ drunken serenades made by a group of envoys from Omashu who’d gotten a little too far into their liquor that night and set out to help their friend, who’d loudly declared his love for a cousin of the groom’s earlier in the night, win her over with song and dance and spectacle enough for a dozen weddings.

But it was a portentous one nonetheless.

* * *

**Three/Four**

The next time they met, Sora found the cousin he barely knew in utter dismay. He did not know much, but he knew that there was a baby, and he was supposed to Stay Away, and Xinyi was crying.

It was an entirely foreign problem, and one that Sora wasn’t quite sure how to manage: Xinyi, it seemed, was _extremely_ put-out to have been supplanted in her many doting relatives’ eyes by a potato-shaped thing whose only occupations seemed to be shrieking bloody murder and commanding attention that should’ve been hers. He did not know this girl, really, but his mother had firmly instructed him to treat his cousin kindly, and he hated to see anyone cry.

  
So he stood behind her in the room where they’d been left with their grandmother for a moment, formulating a plan, and then he made one.

“Hi, Xinyi.”

Xinyi turned, her green eyes narrowing suspiciously. “How do you know my name?”

“Mama told me,” Sora replied, taking a seat next to her on the rug. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like Jangmi.” Xinyi smacked a wooden block into the rug with as much force as she could manage. When she raised it to repeat the motion, she left an indentation in the red plush of the rug.

“Who’s Jangmi?”

“My sister.”

“Why not?”

Xinyi glared at Sora as if he should just _know this._ “’Cause no one wants to play with me.”

“Why not?” Sora watched his cousin smack her block into the carpet again and again through doelike grey eyes. 

“’Cause of my sister.”

Sora paused for a moment to consider her words. They didn’t make much sense, but he arrived at an answer anyways.

“ _I’ll_ play with you,” he told her, and she continued to glare.

“But I don’t _know_ you!”

“I’m Sora,” he told her. “And you’re Xinyi. Now you know me.”

Xinyi squinted at him, but her face broke into a beaming, gap-toothed smile soon after. “Okay!” she said cheerily, handing him the block. “Wanna make a hole?”

“How?” Sora asked, turning the block clumsily in his hands to examine it.

“Just hit it,” Xinyi told him, smacking the carpet with her block once more.

“Hit it?”

“Yeah!” she repeated the motion. “We’re gonna make a hole!”

“In the floor?” Sora looked at her questioningly. “Is that allowed?”

“I don’t care!” she said gleefully, continuing to hammer the block into the carpet. “We’re gonna make a hole, ‘cause they won’t let us out!”

“ _Ooh.”_ This, suddenly, made sense. “We’re getting _out.”_

_“Out,”_ Xinyi repeated, giggling. “So we can see my mommy!”

“Okay,” Sora said, even though he wasn’t sure why they couldn’t just ask Grandmother – _this_ one, _his_ grandmother, was always Grandmother, even though the one he and Xinyi shared was Gran-Gran – to let them out. They took turns with the block until they heard the door swing open and Xinyi shrieked with delight, running for the door without even looking to see who it was.

“ _Daddy!”_ she cried, latching on to her father’s leg. “Can we go see Mommy?”

_I should keep going,_ Sora decided, continuing to smack the block into the carpet. It hadn’t made a dent, which was extremely discouraging, but Xinyi had been so sure that it would work that he couldn’t give up _now._

“Of course, _Meihua,”_ Hyun murmured, pressing a light kiss to her wispy hair and lifting her to his hip. Xinyi rested her head against her father’s shoulder. “What…what is Sora doing?”

“We’re making a hole!” Sora said brightly, thrilled to have been acknowledged. He didn’t know his uncle well, but he liked him. He was kind and funny and always smiling, and Sora hoped he could tag along. “Xinyi told me to. So we could get out!”

“We’re earthbending!” Xinyi crowed. “So we can see mommy!”

Hyun glanced down at Hina with nothing but delight at her misunderstanding of the idea, smiling absently from the armchair where she’d been watching the children, with as much affection on his face as she’d ever seen. It hit her, with a pang, that she had perhaps never met a father more doting or freely affectionate than Hyun, and the expression of utter delight on Hyun’s face at his daughter’s proclamation nearly brought tears to her eyes.

“Looks like it worked!” he told her brightly, wondering how she'd feel when she learned she really _could_ bend earth. “Want to go see her now?”

And not even the idea of seeing the dreaded baby sister she so loathed was enough to diminish Xinyi’s enthusiasm at that.

(Sora, thoroughly confused, followed along.)

* * *

**_Four/Five_ **

****

This time, when Xinyi caught sight of her cousin, she was anything but shy.

“ _Sora!”_ she cried the moment Meng touched down in the courtyard, breaking free of her parents’ grip to run towards the strange creature who’d brought her favorite cousin back to her.

“Xinyi!” he called back, hopping down (well, near-falling, really) and running to embrace her.

“Sora, be careful!” his mother called after him as he ran towards her, hand absentmindedly rubbing her swollen abdomen. “Don’t-“

“He’ll be okay, Yuna,” Ryuji reassured her, helping her down even as she insistently swatted his hand away.

“We have new turtleducks!” Xinyi informed her cousin once he’d let her go. “Do you wanna see them?”

“Turtleducks?” Sora asked, cocking his head to the side. “What’s turtleducks?”

Xinyi’s eyes widened. “How could you not know what _turtleducks_ are?”

“Xinyi, sweetheart, they don’t have turtleducks at the Air Temple,” Kya explained, crouching next to the children and brushing a stray curl out of her oldest daughter’s face.

“That’s so _sad,”_ Xinyi said plaintively as she took Sora’s hand and began to run up the stone steps of the palace. “I gotta show you!”

“And you can, _Meihua,”_ Hyun cut in, adjusting the straps of the sling in which he carried his younger daughter. “But we need to let them settle in first.”

“But…I wanna see _turtleducks!”_ Sora protested.

“Yeah, Daddy, he wants to see the turtleducks!” Xinyi widened her eyes, blinking up at her father with a slight pout to her lip. “And he’s never even seen one before!”

“Actually, if you could take him while we unpack, that would be great,” Yuna said with a tired sigh. “It’s been a long trip.”

“She could use the rest,” Ryuji agreed, his hand settling at the small of Yuna’s back. “Hasn’t been sleeping well.”

“Welcome to the club,” Kya deadpanned.

Yuna playfully smacked her sister-in-law’s arm. “At least your kid is _out_ already.”

“Yeah, out and crawling and trying to eat everything she can get her mouth around,” Kya said with a fond roll of her eyes. “Not to mention this one.” She gestured to Xinyi. “Suffice to say she takes after her father.”

“And you love it,” Hyun teased.

Kya rolled her eyes, though she craned her neck to let him kiss her briefly. “Sure I do.”

  
“Are you _talking_ about me?” Xinyi asked, scandalized.

The adults shared slightly horrified looks before bursting out laughing.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie,” Kya laughed. “See? It’s _scary_ how smart she is.” 

“Definitely doesn’t get that from me,” Hyun teased.

“No, but she got your vanity and earthbending,” Kya teased.

_And your heart,_ she wanted to say, but she was never one to be a sap in mixed company. It was true, though: Xinyi was temperamental, but she was unrestrained in her affection, endlessly loving to those who she deemed worthy (though it had taken months for her infant sister Jangmi to be added to that list), and…

Well, as good-naturedly _sweet_ as her father.

Kya guessed that Hyun knew, watching her expressions change, what she’d wished to say, and he met her eyes with a soft, grateful smile.

  
“Well, let’s just hope this one is as calm as Sora,” Ryuji said, shrugging helplessly, and no one exactly knew what to say to that, so no one responded.

(Dolma Oyama entered the world with no short supply of noise or chaos, three weeks later; Kya simply smirked at the frantic expression on her brother’s face.

If her older brother minded, though, he didn’t show it.)

* * *

****

**_Thirteen_ **

****

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Nothing,” Sora huffed, stabbing his pen back into the inkwell.

  
“But I’m bored,” Dolma whined. At eight, she’d all but mastered the art of irritation, and though Sora’s temper was usually even enough to ride out her intrusions, he was rather inclined to let her get his goat now.

  
He didn’t do interruptions.

  
“And I’m trying to write a letter here-“

“Ooooh, a _love_ letter?” Dolma waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Ew, no. It’s to _Xinyi.”_ He shot her his most withering glare, though, admittedly, it wasn’t too withering.

“Oh.” Dolma looked disappointed. “I thought for sure it was gonna be for Nisha.”

Sora’s cheeks flushed. “Why would I be writing a letter to Nisha? She lives here.”

“Because you’re in _looove,_ ” Dolma teased. “Or, wait, is it Diya? I always forget which twin you like.”

“I told you, Dolma, it’s to our _cousin.”_

“I don’t believe-“

“Don’t touch my stuff,” he warned her, throwing a protective arm across the letter. He knew Dolma well enough now to know that she’d absolutely try to steal the letter if she thought its contents were adequately juicy.

“I wasn’t gonna!” she protested. “You’re so _mean_ to me!”

“Dolma, _please_ just leave me alone.”

“Fine.” Dolma stuck out her lower lip. “Be like that.”

“I will,” Sora called after her, sighing as he returned to his letter.

* * *

**_Twelve_ **

“Hey, Xin?”

Xinyi glanced up from her parchment, grimacing as a droplet of ink fell from the tip of her quill and hit the cotton of her favorite daytime robe. “Hey, Mimi,” she replied. “Need something?”

“Nah. Just bored.” Jangmi flopped backwards onto her bed on the opposite side of the room they shared. “Writing a letter?”

“Yeah. Sora just sent me a letter and he needs girl advice again.” Xinyi rolled her eyes. “He _always_ needs girl advice.”

“Ooh, tell me! I’m great at advice!”

“Mimi, you’re _nine,”_ Xinyi said gently. “Thank you, but…I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, still tell me,” Jangmi replied, unfazed. She hugged a pillow encased in teal satin to her chest in anticipation. Sora’s letters from the Air Temple – whether they talked of romantic woes, his sisters (ages eight and three – eight-year-old Dolma the source of constant annoyance, and three-year-old Yangchen, in his eyes, a cherub incapable of wrongdoing), or the new firebending forms he was mastering – were a source of constant entertainment to the sisters.

“So, remember Nisha from the last letter?” 

“The Air Acolyte he likes?” Jangmi asked. “Yeah, why?”

“Well, apparently, Nisha has a twin,” Xinyi explained. “Diya, he said. And apparently, Nisha said Sora’s like her brother, but Diya told Nisha not to call him that because she likes him and it’s weird if her sister says her crush is like a brother, and Sora doesn’t like Diya back, so now he doesn’t know what to do.”

“A love triangle!” Jangmi’s eyes widened. “I thought those things only happened in…”

She realized her mistake too late and trailed off.

“In the romance scrolls you’ve been stealing from Mom?” Xinyi challenged, crossing her arms. “Don’t lie, Mimi. I’ve found them in your pillowcase.”

“I don’t even know what’s going on in them,” Jangmi admitted guiltily. “I just like the plots.”

“They don’t _have_ plots, Mimi. It’s just a bunch of hot people kissing each other. And besides,” she said loftily, “you’re _nine.”_

“So what?”

“You’ll understand when you’re older.”

(Xinyi, who’d once appropriated one of the scrolls that Jangmi had filched from their mother’s collection, suspected that she understood little more than her sister, but she wasn’t about to admit it.)

“Tell him to get over the one girl and tell the other he doesn’t like her before she thinks he does,” Jangmi said after a pause. “See? I _am_ good at advice!”

Xinyi shook her head, but she still added it in. It was good advice, after all.

* * *

****

**_Fifteen/Sixteen_ **

****

“I would’ve thought you’d be dancing.”

Xinyi shook her head, turning at the sound of Sora’s voice. “No, I’m kind of tired.”

“Thanks for the advice.” Sora took a few steps to stand beside her. “Really worked.”

“Which advice?” Xinyi asked. “I think I gave you a lot of it.”

“About my sister,” Sora admitted sheepishly. “Turns out girls _do_ think I’m more attractive when I bring her along.”

“Told you.” Xinyi shook her head. “And yet you never listen.”

They were silent after that, and Sora’s eyes followed Xinyi’s to the portraits hung on the wall in front of them. There were countless: some formal, others small, framed sketches. The full-length portraits of past Fire Lords were self-explanatory, but neither cousin had ever asked what any of the smaller drawings meant. 

“So why’d you run away?” he asked. “Didn’t your parents try to make you stay?”

“They understood.” Xinyi shrugged. “I think my dad was about to come with me. And Mimi.”

“You ditched her?”

“She’s still at the reception with my parents,” Xinyi explained. “And Iroh and Akane and Dolma. Besides, I think she and Dolma were dancing when I left, so they’re fine.”

“Okay.” Sora shoved his hands in his pockets and yawned – it had been a long day, after all – and surveyed the portrait wall again. “Why’d you come here, though?”

“I just like it, I guess,” Xinyi said. “Looking at all of these pictures, trying to figure out what everybody’s life was like.”

“Hm.” Sora’s eyes landed on one portrait in particular, one who looked like his mother. “Is this an office or something? Or…a parlor? Whose?” 

“I don’t think it’s anyone’s,” Xinyi replied. “It’s usually locked. Only person I’ve ever seen in here is your grandma.”

“Gran-Gran?”

“No, Hina.”

“Oh, right.” Sora nodded. “That’s…kinda weird. Why do you think she comes in here?”

“I dunno.” Xinyi shrugged. “Maybe she’s like me.” Xinyi pointed to a portrait of a stunning young woman whose cheekbones looked like they could cut through metal. “Maybe she likes to look at people like that lady and decide that they liked baked fish more than any other meal.”

“Do you think that one had a lot of girlfriends?” Sora pointed to one of a scruffy but undeniably attractive young man about his own age. “Looks like the type.”

“No, that one uses humor to cope with his tragic past. I’ve already decided on him.” Xinyi pointed at another portrait, this one of a grave-faced older man with severe features. “It’s _this_ one that I don’t know about. I can’t decide whether he was a university professor or a gardener with an unhappy marriage.”

“I think it says his name in the lower right corner,” Sora pointed out, gesturing to the bottom corner. “Masaki.” He pointed to the one of the woman with the beautiful cheekbones. “That one, too. Says her name is Zijun.”

“Oh!” Xinyi’s eyes lit up. “And the boy’s has it too! Jiro Kanaeda,” she read aloud.

“Do you have stories for all of these people?” Sora asked.

“Well, a lot of them,” Xinyi admitted, a little sheepish. “Not something I’m super proud of, but yeah, I do.”

“Why not?” Sora took a seat in one of the dusty armchairs facing the wall of portraits.

“I guess…it’s kinda weird.” Xinyi shrugged. “It’s kinda lonely sometimes. I like…I don’t know, making up stories to fill my head, and…imagining that these portraits were people like me once.”

“I don’t think that’s weird at all.”

“Says the guy who had to friendzone his crush’s twin sister,” Xinyi teased, though there was a frayed edge to her jibe that didn’t escape his notice.

“Okay, I didn’t say _I_ wasn’t weird.”

“I especially like that one,” Xinyi continued softly, pointing to a portrait in the center of the cluster. The woman’s name wasn’t marked, though she looked enough like a younger version of Sora’s grandmother that she couldn’t resist seeing her as a sort of proto-Hina. She had a square, flat face, a brush of freckles across her cheeks, a wide nose, hair pulled into a topknot, and unmistakable hope in her eyes.

Those eyes – seafoam green – were the only things colored in any of the sketches.

“She’s got green eyes, like you,” Sora pointed out.

Xinyi nodded. “She feels so… _real._ I like to think that I might have known her, in another life.”

Sora nodded, for somehow it made perfect sense, and for a moment they sat in silence.

“Well, I think I have to get back to the party,” Sora sighed. “I’ll be in there if you need me.”

“Okay,” Xinyi said, and as soon as the door latched she stood, pressing her hand to the glass covering the portrait in the middle of the wall.

  
She was sorry she’d lied to her cousin, but this was a happy night, or at least it had been intended to be; he wasn’t supposed to be reminded of loss or absence tonight. A coronation was about hope, and she’d not wanted despair to cloud his memories of this night. So she had said nothing, or, if anything, a distilled version of the truth.

But here, standing in the middle of what had once been the office of the Spymistress – the one so beloved that her office had been preserved, hung with the sketches she’d collected, and not given to her predecessor – all Xinyi had was herself and the truth and she would face it. After all, it was why she’d come here.

“Hey, Yangchen,” she murmured, removing her hand from the glass and taking a step backwards to meet the charcoal sketch’s eyes. “Izumi’s the Fire Lord now. Thought you might want to know that.”  
  


Xinyi still felt foolish, talking to this sketch whose identity few knew, but she felt that she needed to, somehow. She’d never met Yangchen Oyama; it seemed pointless to pretend she had, to talk to her portrait as if one day she’d leap from the page and reply. But _something,_ some tug at her heart, told her that those green eyes were not the only thing she shared with her late aunt, that _someone_ had to remember her.

She would remember, if no one else would; for Xinyi knew that Yangchen’s parents and her sister and brother would never forget her but they would be gone, someday, and leave only Xinyi alive to know what she knew. So she would return here, and she would speak to a drawing as if it were her dearest friend, and she would perform the delicate balancing act of remembering someone she had never met.

She thought of it as a game, this secrecy, this recreation of memories she did not have; and so long as those green eyes peered out from her behind the glass, Xinyi would not let the past – for that, and not merely the memory of one woman who’d been left there – be turned to dust with time and fresh worries.

So long as she could, Xinyi would not give the game away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you.
> 
> That is all I have to say. Thank you, and I hope the wait was worthwhile.


End file.
